Sustainability

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Brother has been a full funding member of the Cartridges 4 Planet Ark (‘C4PA’) recycling program since 2003. This Australia-wide program collects and recycles used printer cartridges, diverting 100% of the cartridge from landfill. 



The C4PA program covers a wide range of Brother genuine consumables, including inkjet and laser cartridges, drum and fuser units, print heads, waste containers, and kits. All cartridges collected through the program are recycled by Close the Loop using a certified zero waste-to-landfill process. Recovered materials are repurposed into new products, such as e-wood for outdoor furniture and TonerPlas®, an innovative asphalt additive made from residual toner and recycled soft plastics.

Where to recycle

In early 2019, Brother Australia identified an opportunity to respond to customer and end user concerns by phasing out EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) and EPE (Extruded Polyethylene) packaging. In collaboration with major stakeholders and with the support of our parent company’s Research & Development, Design & Engineering, Procurement and Sales & Marketing departments, we developed EPS-free packaging, a world first for the Brother Group, for our printer range and later extended this across a suite of products.

This innovative, compact and lightweight moulded pulp cushioning material, which reduces material use, cuts carbon emissions and is made from 100% recycled and 100% recyclable materials, won APCO’s 2023 Sustainable Packaging Guidelines Award, the Japan Packaging Contest 2024 Award and the WorldStar Award 2025 for its innovative, more sustainable design. This collaborative effort required operational adjustments, including:

• Sourcing new suppliers capable of providing alternative materials
• Modifying production lines to accommodate new designs
• Conducting extensive drop testing to ensure product protection
• Training staff to manage the new processes
• Redesigning carton sizes to further minimise material use

Australia served as the pilot country for this initiative, providing valuable insights that are now being used to expand the program to other regions. Our ‘Expanded Polystyrene-Free Packaging’ logo is now included in marketing materials, enabling customers to make more sustainable choices. We continue to work closely with our parent company to explore ways of increasing the circularity of all our packaging materials. More details of Brother's moulded pulp development efforts are featured on its SDGs special website, "Brother SDGs STORY," which also includes interviews with project members and the video below that highlights the development process using simulation technology.

As a sales and marketing company, Brother Australia's scope 1 and scope 2 emissions are less than 0.5% of our carbon emissions footprint, so we monitor the scope 3 emissions attributable to the manufacture, transport & distribution, use and disposal of our products. Brother Australia is setting emissions reduction targets in line with the Brother Group targets and we will share our progress publicly when they are finalised.