Toshiba: Blockchain technology to track and offset the emissions of printing devices
The challenge
Toshiba Tec Italia, part of Toshiba Corporation, is a leading supplier of printing equipment and systems. As part of a wider push into innovation and change, it created a new business unit, Bralys, through which it offers advanced solutions and guides companies through digital transformation — gradually, analytically, sustainably and on their own terms.
Sustainability is a strategic priority for Toshiba, running through every part of the business, with constant attention to protecting natural resources and keeping people safe. Environmental protection sits at the center of the company's operating model — an approach that also helps customers cut costs and work more efficiently. Underpinning it is a healthy, open company culture geared toward sustainable development for society and for the market.
With that in mind, Toshiba Tec Italia chose Up2You as a specialist partner to advance its environmental strategy and launch Carbon 2.0. The program allows customers to offset the emissions generated by their business activities, including Toshiba printing systems, by supporting certified projects with high environmental and social impact, with full transparency guaranteed by blockchain. It is a natural fit with the Bralys approach.
Would you like to start a journey like Toshiba's?
Goals and requirements
Guarantee full transparency and traceability
Toshiba needed to evolve its long-standing Carbon Zero strategy into a more advanced, fully traceable digital program. The aim was to account precisely for every tonne of CO₂ offset, through a rigorous and transparent approach built on projects certified to the highest international standards.
Deliver real environmental and social impact
The company wanted to go beyond simply mitigating the emissions of its own products. The requirement was to actively support certified nature-based projects, both internationally — reforestation in Uruguay, forest protection in Indonesia — and in Italy, with the protection of the Venice Lagoon, contributing in a joined-up way to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.
Turn its sustainability commitment into value for customers
It was essential for Toshiba to offer customers a genuinely high-value alternative, and to give commercial partners concrete, certifiable tools with which to communicate the environmental choices they had made.
Initial obstacles
Digitalizing the management of offsetting
Toshiba had already established a number of environmental initiatives, but moving to a "2.0" ecosystem meant a significant technological step up. Integrating advanced systems to manage certified projects called for specific expertise and dedicated digital tools, making a specialist partner essential to guarantee rigor and transparency.
Ensuring scientific rigor and reliability
To turn commitment into concrete action, Toshiba had to select high-impact projects that were genuinely measurable and verifiable. Making sure every supported project really did conserve ecosystems or capture CO₂ meant adopting very demanding standards and monitoring them closely.
Making results tangible for stakeholders
Translating emissions-reduction data into something communicable and contemporary was not straightforward. What was needed was a system capable of turning an invisible action — offsetting CO₂ — into a unique digital certificate that could tell the sustainability story clearly and engagingly to everyone along the chain.
Why Toshiba Tec Italia chose Up2You
- A scientific, guaranteed approach to assessing and offsetting emissions.
- Technological innovation and traceability, ensuring every single tonne of CO₂ offset is tracked beyond doubt.
- Access to projects with high social and environmental impact, such as protecting the Venice Lagoon or reforestation in Uruguay, delivering tangible benefits aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.
In their words
Sustainability has always mattered to us, and with Up2You we have turned that environmental commitment into something more transparent, more traceable and more valuable for our customers. Working together lets us combine innovation and sustainability, making every supply a concrete act in favor of the environment. Up2You has proved a solid and capable partner in strengthening this journey, with a knack for making even the most complex subjects clear and accessible.
Massimiliano Barberis
Head of Operations, Toshiba Tec Italia Imaging Systems SpA
The project
The work between Up2You and Toshiba Tec Italia took shape as an ongoing, structured program. Rather than a one-off intervention, Carbon 2.0 was designed to offset emissions progressively and continuously.
In practice, the project began with Toshiba's voluntary decision to acquire an initial package of carbon credits to offset 400 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. To manage that offsetting efficiently, a lean, recurring data-sharing workflow was put in place: through a dedicated report, Toshiba tells Up2You at regular intervals exactly how many tonnes to offset for each specific supply, naming the client company as beneficiary and the environmental project chosen to support, whether in Italy or abroad.
Once those figures arrive, Up2You processes and certifies the transaction. Every tonne of CO₂ is recorded on the blockchain and converted into an NFT unique to that customer. The data is then reworked to give beneficiaries ready-to-use communication tools — climate kits and media kits — so they can easily make the most of their environmental commitment.
This way of working carries no rigid end date: it will run alongside Toshiba until the credits initially purchased are used up. The result is a durable, self-reinforcing mechanism that not only mitigates the impact of the products placed on the market, but turns every single supply into concrete, transparent action.
