Employees' green ideas save Xerox $10.2M

Xerox Corp. put a spotlight on employee impact last week when the copying and printing technology giant announced it saved $10.2 million and saved an estimated 2.6 million pounds of waste this year thanks to employee-driven tweaks.

Xerox, which gains green credibility from its nontoxic ColorQube solid ink, presents awards each year to employees who come up with greener ways of doing business.

Xerox's Wilsonville campus, where it employs about 1,500 people, took home two of the 13 annual Earth Awards for 2010, chosen out of 30 nominations from around the company's worldwide facilities.

A Wilsonville research team developed the smallest package possible for the solid ink, using 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials for the tray and lid and a 43 percent recycled-content shipping box.

Another Wilsonville team got the nod by saving 855,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity by curtailing the energy used by idle office equipment and unnecessary lighting. The measures resulted in savings of $140,000.

Additional awards were won by employees who improved wastewater processes and achieved zero waste to the landfill at a plant in New York. A team in Ohio downsized packaging A team in Canada launched a customer training program for sustainable practices and employees in Ireland reconstructed ink kits rather than throwing them away.

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