Digital Responsibility

Challenges due to digitilisation: Konica Minolta’s digital responsibility

We live in one of the most prosperous times in human history. At the same time, humanity faces massive challenges and changes due to digitilisation, because digitilisation changes the way how we live and work. Climate change, massive pollution, dying species, migration are just some of our global sustainable challenges. But our changing environment and sustainable challenges can be influenced and shaped by us. Here, corporations play a central role. Konica Minolta acknowledges its responsibility and actively shapes it within its corporate digital responsibility.

 

Konica Minolta understands its digital responsibility as a voluntary commitment to sustainability that also considers its impacts on the environment and society due to digitilisation. In addition, the company is voluntarily committed to the simultaneous achievement of sustainable goals as well as a preservation of the ecological and social livelihood for the people nowadays as well as future generations that are realised through digital solutions.
 

Konica Minolta focusses on four key actions fields around corporate digital responsibility:
 

Data responsibility: Going beyond legal requirements

Legal requirements and standards concerning data protection and information security as well as hacker/cyber-attacks and skimming require a responsible use of personal data. But Konica Minolta understands its data responsibility not only as an obligation to comply with legal requirements and standards to protect data and ensure information security, but also to voluntarily handle individual personal data carefully and responsibly. The company does this because of its ethical understanding of data protection as well as because it is a human right to protect a person’s own data. Konica Minolta thus wishes to ensure privacy and to maintain a person’s sovereignty over their own data and footprint in the digitalised world.

Therefore, Konica Minolta:

• Set up a Global Personal Data Protection Policy which goes beyond GDPR
• Has Data Protection Coordination Managers in each country in Europe
• Established an Information Security management
• Offers its customers security solutions such as bizhub SECURE for instance
• Has a 360-degree-approach incl. security trainings

 

Social innovation: For a social betterment

Digitilisation has the potential of a "game changer" for a social betterment. It represents the chance to improve processes, services and products so that negative impacts on our ecosystem and society can be reduced. Konica Minolta is convinced that social innovation and digital technology should serve humanity and the planet. With its innovative capacity the company supports society to tackle social challenges at a scale and speed that was unimaginable before the rise of the digital technologies. Thus, Konica Minolta is committed to use of innovative capacity and digital technologies for the realisation of the UN Sustainable Developments Goals by 2030.

Konica Minolta has, for example, realised projects such as:

• Promotes new business development through core technologies and open innovation
• Promotes business development at the company’s five Business Innovation Centers (BICs)
• Incorporates state-of-the-art digital technologies into its core technologies
• Supports corporate work-style reform
• Uses digital technology to reduce the environmental impact of commercial printing

 

Digital pollution: Minimising the quantity

Konica Minolta considers the negative impacts on the environment caused by the use of digital technologies. The company acknowledges the challenges associated with digitilisation such as digital pollution. One of the main forms of digital pollution is called ‘dormant pollution’, which is due to the storage of emails. It is a big contributor to climate change and every single person is contributing to it.

To minimise digital pollution Konica Minolta:

• Uses renewable energy
• Ensures smaert cooling of data centres
• Compensates unavoidable CO₂ emissions
• Has a Circular Economy approach

 

Accessibility & digital inclusion: Digital technologies for everyone

Konica Minolta wants to make digital technology accessible to people no matter of their age, gender, and physical impairment and is committed to digital inclusion. Thus, it shall contribute to the wellbeing of our society.

To make digital technologies accessible and enable digital inclusion Konica Minolta:

• Uses digital technologies in-house to enhance work-life-balance, such as solutions to allow mobile working for instance
• Offers digital expertise for a social purpose, e.g. the partnership with The Big Issue, a UK street paper
• Guarantees access for everyone with its Universal Design