Moreover, our employees have taken a leadership-training program, which was created to promote employee environmental volunteer activities. The scheduled site for a forest restoration project in Sri Lanka Land being cultivated for a satoyama restortion project in Japan Land being plowed for the transplantation of rice seedlings for a satoyama restoration project in Japan Rice seedlings being transplanted in a satoyama restoration project in Japan Partnerships with NGOs and NPOs Ricoh focuses on partnerships with NGOs and NPOs for the extensive learning, mutual understanding, and interactive benefits of joint promotion activities. Workshops were held at Ricoh Aoyama Head Office in December 1998 and September 1999. Approximately 30 companies, organizations, universities, members of the media, and the WWF Japan participated in these workshops, where representatives of different industries and NPOs cooperated with one another in improving the global environment. For the purpose of promoting social contribution activities by employees, Ricoh established a social contribution club in 1999 called Free Will.
Employees donate a fraction of their salaries for social contribution activities.
Ricoh supports those activities under a gift-matching system, in which the company matches the amount donated by employees for a given cause. To support environmental conservation activities, we made contributions to the Sahel Association, an NPO engaged in afforestation activities in the Sahara. The contributions were used to purchase saplings. We also prepared a CD-ROM to be distributed free of charge to approximately 120 schools and children. Ricoh Corporation in U.S.A. created an environmental education Web site in the spring of 1999, which attracted 500 million visitors in its first year through such promotional activities as giving away a free car and by soliciting other companies for their support.