OREANDA-NEWS. July 28, 2011. Ricoh Company, Ltd. (President and CEO: Shiro Kondo) installed a 100% eco-powered electronic billboard in the city of North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and held a ceremony yesterday, July 26, commemorating the completion as local government officials, customers and dealers gathered in attendance. The billboard gains and stores electricity for lighting from a private power generator that harnesses the energy of the sun.

This is the third billboard of this kind, following installations in Times Square, New York (*1) and London (*2), which Ricoh has installed overseas and illuminate using natural energy. Ricoh aims to achieve sustainable environmental management that simultaneously conserves the environment and creates profit. Installation of these billboards is part of the project the Company is advancing with a focus on natural energy to communicate Ricoh's corporate stance. However if there is insufficient solar power, the sign may not light up; that is an eventuality Ricoh readily accepts. We believe that the objectives of these billboards are to communicate a message that prompts environmental awareness among the public and to take a step towards a sustainable society, rather than merely promoting the Company name. 96 solar panels will produce an average of approximately 123,200 wh of electricity per day.

All employees of the Ricoh Group are united in their efforts to move forward with initiatives to lower the Group's environmental impact, with the ambitious goal of reducing it to one-eighth of the Fiscal Year 2000 levels by 2050. The Group has been working aggressively to conserve energy with full use of natural energy in areas other than the eco-board. With the adoption of an eco-powered system for street lights at the Atsugi Plant in 1999 as a start, the Group introduced the system to the Numazu Plant for waste water treatment in 2006, and to a US production subsidiary for use at its office building in February 2011.