Special Report

Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority in the UK and the largest council in Europe.  The sustainability strategy for the city as a whole involves the council in scrutinising all of its own activities, but also working in partnership with others to work towards sustainability. A Sustainability Purchasing and Procurement Policy has been implemented within the council since 1999.  The policy encourages the different departments within the council to: * review whole life costs before specification * specify green alternatives and * buy from approved & sustainable suppliers Birmingham’s response to the current ‘green’ climate is to increase low carbon purchasing.  Key to this is to raise awareness of the importance of sustainable procurement and enabling individuals to make an informed choice Birmingham City Council is currently using Kyocera multi-function devices to help reduce: * its carbon footprint * its paper consumption and * the volume of consumables used in the its printing equipment They were also keen to reduce the amount of waste generated as there is a lack of landfill around the Birmingham area, highlighted in their sustainability policy. Kyocera is one of four suppliers that supplies Birmingham City Council – the majority of the machines supplied being MFDs (multifunctional devices). The Council chose Kyocera because of price and superior back-up service & support which is provided by partner Altodigital, the supplier of Kyocera equipment.  In terms of MFDs,  Kyocera’s green credentials all ticked the right boxes. Councillor Paul Tilsey, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council said: “Birmingham City Council has a wide array of printing machines all taking cartridges at a considerable expense.  Since installing the Kyocera multi-functional devices, we have not only saved in procurement, but also in running costs.  The devices have also helped us in reducing our energy consumption so choosing Kyocera was a win, win, win situation. Before the MFDs were introduced, the council offices were crowded with many different devices, such as printers, copiers and fax machines scattered throughout the buildings. Now the MFDs have been deployed, the Council have found document management much easier as the machines do all the tasks they require and there is more space as the stand-alone machines have been replaced.