By re-using old toner cartridges more efficiently, Brother Industries UK has cut the carbon emissions produced in the re-manufacturing process by nearly half since 2007.
And customers have sent back 8m used cartridges since 2005, keeping 7,300 tonnes of waste out of landfill. The group's recycling technology centre, based in Wrexham, develops environmental solutions for Brother's toner manufacturing and recycling programme globally.
It has managed to reduce the scrap rate of returned cartridges to just 5.5%, saving the company more than €5m (£4.1m). It has also cut the cost of the returns scheme by a quarter and saved more than £4m by recovering components.
Each year, customers return 1.6m used toner cartridges through the company's free scheme and there is a bulk return scheme for dealers and high volume users. The company remanufactures 95% of these returns (compared to 83% in 2010), while the remaining 5% are recycled.
It does this by recovering between 71% and 76% of components to re-use, compared to only 30% in 2009. All this means that remanufacturing produces between 41% and 43.2% less CO2 compared to 2007.
These innovations happened when the UK team worked with the group's Japanese design team to come up with a "design for life" ensuring that future toner cartridges could be recycled. The centre led a global working group, sharing best practices and standardising procedures and processes, made the returns scheme more efficient and enhanced staff's technical knowledge.
The initiative forms part of a wider environmental awareness and community programme within the group. Internally, staff can earn points by answering environmental quizzes and participating in environmental activities. A 2013 Brother Global Charter survey revealed 83% of staff in the UK team take environmental considerations into account in their actions.
Jackie Wills is part of the wordworks network
The Guardian Sustainable Business Sustainability Case Studies contain articles on all the initiatives that met the criteria for the GSB Awards.
