At an exclusive ceremony in the Opera house the sign was officially switched on by Brad Hazzard, MP minister for planning and infrastructure, minister assisting the premier on infrastructure NSW, with Kazunori Azuma, corporate executive vice president and general manager of Global Marketing Group of Ricoh, from Japan.

Azuma says, “Rather than merely using this billboard to promote our company name, Ricoh sees it as a way of communicating our environmental and sustainability values to a wide public audience. We wish to demonstrate by example Ricoh’s deep commitment to environmental conservation. Therefore the sign will not light up if there is insufficient power collected from the sunlight.”

“This launch is not simply about switching on a sign. Ricoh is making a statement about the need to develop new and better ways to minimise our environmental impact and we want to encourage environmental awareness at all levels of society,” he added.

Though this eco billboard appears to be something new in town, the initiative behind it – driven by Ricoh – is not. The Sydney sign is one of Ricoh’s three completely sustainable signboards in the world. The other two eco billboards are located in New York’s Times Square and in London.

In Sydney, Ricoh partnered with a local supplier to develop and install the first-of-its-kind eco-sign, which is positioned on three sides at the top of 132 Alfred Street, North Sydney, overlooking the Warringah Freeway, the gateway to Sydney over the Harbour Bridge.

The new technology is driven by 96 solar panels which generate power that is stored onto 48 batteries onsite, and act as the only source of power for the sign. When the batteries run out of power, the Ricoh sign will not light, nor will it ever use any power from the grid.

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