Akihiko Sakai, executive officer of corporate strategy at Sekio Epson Corporation, said other key goals were to include all Epson products in the resource reuse and recycling loop, reduce direct CO2 emissions by 90% and eliminate global warming gas emissions other than CO2.

This will involve Epson reviewing products at the design phase to shrink part sizes, weights and part counts; developing a business model in which end-user products have a longer service life, and are returned to Epson at the end; and cutting cleanroom energy use in half, thereby tackling the single biggest source of direct CO2 emissions.

Sakai said: "We would like to invite other members of the printing and imaging industry, to match or better our targets. That's the only time we would be happy to come second best."