Brother Product Becomes the World's First Recycled Toner Cartridge to Receive the German Eco-label, Blue Angel Certification

Brother Industries, Ltd. (President: Ichiro Sasaki) today announced that its recycled toner cartridge, TN-3512 RE, produced at its manufacturing subsidiary, BROTHER INDUSTRIES (SLOVAKIA) s.r.o., has received the Blue Angel certification (DE-UZ 177)^*, a German environmental label. This is the first time in the world that a recycled toner cartridge has received the Blue Angel certification.

The Blue Angel is the world's first eco-label, established in Germany in 1978 with the aim of solving environmental problems and promoting the development and sales of environmentally friendly products. The Brother Group has been working to develop environmentally friendly products, and since the laser printer received the Blue Angel certification in September 2001, the Group has been working to acquire the certification for various products. To obtain the Blue Angel certification for recycled toner cartridges as well, BROTHER INDUSTRIES (SLOVAKIA) has been conducting various tests and other activities over the past two years, and now the TN-3512 RE has become the first recycled toner cartridge in the world to receive the Blue Angel certification.

The Brother Group has been promoting efforts to increase the reuse and recycling rate of products and consumables that customers have finished using. As part of these efforts, the Group collects used toner cartridges from laser printers and All-in-Ones, recycles them into toner cartridges of the same quality as the original new products, and provides them to customers once again. This initiative began in 2004 at the U.K. plant and has since expanded to plants in Slovakia, the U.S., and Japan, and as of the end of March 2023, 37.59 million toner cartridges has been recycled across the Group.

In addition, the Brother Group's environmental goal, "Brother Group Environmental Vision 2050," defines the goal of maximizing resource recycling to ensure sustainable use of resources and minimize the environmental impact due to waste by FY2050. Furthermore, the Brother Group's medium-term business strategy "CS B2024" defines resource circulation as one of the materialities (priority social issues), and the Group is promoting initiatives such as the reuse and recycling of products with the aim of achieving the ratio of virgin materials used in products of 81% or less by FY2024.

The Brother Group will continue to strengthen its environmental initiatives to "contribute to society and help protect the earth" as defined in "Our Purpose" in the Brother Group Vision "At your side 2030."

• Standard that applies to recycled toner cartridges and ink cartridges for printers, All-in-Ones, etc.