As a champion for greater sustainability, the Brother Group is determined to use resources effectively as much as possible to minimise our environmental footprint. This is the foundation for “Brother Earth”, our ongoing commitment to reducing the burden on the environment across all aspects of development, designing, manufacturing, transporting, and recycling, and to infuse the latest eco-conscious technology in our products. This dedication can be found in the development and implementation of innovations in not only our printing technology, but throughout our manufacturing factories and packaging processes as well, resulting in some of the most environmentally friendly printers ever.
Energy efficiency through improved airflow
When it comes to designing for sustainability, we realised that the biggest solutions are often found in the small details. As increased printer performance generates more heat and thus, expands more energy, we took on the challenge of how to effectively release the heat generated from our high-performance printers and maintain optimal temperatures. With that in mind, our engineers turned to cutting-edge simulation technology to predict air flow at the design stage. This allowed us to make fine-tuned adjustments and formulate new products with unprecedented airflow efficiency. This not only means that our printers require fewer cooling fans to operate, but also helps improve reliability and product lifespan due to stabilised internal temperatures.
Lightening the environmental burden through packaging
Brother products are shipped around the globe on journeys of up to several thousand kilometres, and our products must be well-protected until they reach the hands of our customers. However, traditional packaging designs are large and bulky, requiring more materials to produce and taking up greater volumes of storage and shipping space. We made it a mission of making our packaging more environmentally friendly, and went back to the drawing board to create an optimised new packaging design that’s not only lighter and smaller, but also stronger and safer. Today, Brother continues to reduce packaging size to improve the efficiency of transportation and minimise the burden on the environment.
A responsibility that starts within our factories
The goal for Brother has always been the same: to reduce CO2 emission while still maintaining maximum productivity. To see this in effect, you need not look any further than within our manufacturing facilities where we are always striving to reduce materials and energy usage to meet environmental standards. In our Xian factory in China, skylights were installed to lower electricity consumption, and smart technology has been deployed to automatically turns lights off when enough natural light is detected. In the Philippines, we’ve fitted our factory with 100% LED lights to reduce the number of lights utilised by 40%. This has led to the factory being recognised as one of the highest energy-saving production factories in the Brother group. Each year, more such activities are being implemented across Brother production plants around the world, for we know that the journey towards sustainability is a never-ending effort.
Working towards Zero Standby Power
While most devices such as your television, microwave oven, and yes, even your printer is likely to feature a “Standby Mode”, the power that is consumed even when in that state can be significant when you consider that these are often left on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Brother’s goal is to make this power draw as close to zero as possible with our low energy standby technology known as “Green Standby”. This technology decreases the electricity consumption as the number of times charged by the capacitor is reduced, and the longer discharge time means that standby power can be maintained close to zero. Since its announcement, Green Standby has been further developed, achieving a power consumption that is a mere 0.002% compared to a standard low–capacity power supply. However, we believe that even lower power consumption is possible, and we will continue to work on making our dream of Zero Standby Power a reality.
These are just a few examples of the many steps Brother is always taking to create a brighter, more sustainable world for our future generations to enjoy. To explore our ongoing efforts, learn more here.