Being a good environmental steward should be in the mission statement of every business. We all benefit when we are more environmentally friendly.
Through the principles of MPS (Managed Print Services), your printing infrastructure can be more “green” (environmentally friendly) while also saving you on another kind of “green” (money).
If you are in a business where documents (printed copies) are an integral part of how you do business, there are a number of sustainable business practices you can implement to help reduce your business’s carbon footprint while improving your overall efficiencies. We’ll examine a few of these ways in today’s blog.
Let’s start with an easy one. Conserve on use of paper! Statistics show that the average employee prints 10,000 copies per year. That comes down to somewhere between $600 and $1000 in costs per employee per year (likely less if there is a Managed Print Services program in place). Across the United States, the number of pages that are printed or copied annually reaches into the trillions. So, there is plenty of room to implement some meaningful conservation measures.
As a quick reminder, remember that MPS practices can reduce an organization’s document generation costs by between 15% and 25% - which, considering that businesses spend up to 3% of their entire bottom line on printing – can be significant.
The first (and easiest) way to begin conservation is to use two sided printing wherever possible. This can be accomplished by changing the commands on the individual computers which send the “print” signal to the printers, and reconfiguring the printers. Not every job may be ideally suited to two-sided printing, so we won’t claim that this will save you 50% of your paper usage, but it should significantly reduce it.
Consider that some of what you intend to be printed can accomplish the same purpose electronically. A report might be produced as an electronic PDF, for example. And, when proofreading and revising multiple times, revise online rather than printing out copies that you will mark up and eventually throw away.
And each of those 10,000 copies per employee per year translates to approximately one tree, according to the Sierra Club. In fairness, many companies who manufacture paper use a process called “thinning,” using trees that might be impeding the natural growth of other healthy trees. So it can be argued that there are some efforts even at the manufacturing level to be careful about the use of trees. And, with reforestation efforts more abundant today, there are additional opportunities for conservation.
An additional way to curb paper use comes through document management software. Centralizing an organization’s printing can help reduce the amount of paper used. A multifunction printer (MFP) can provide scanning, copying, and printing services. Typically, an MFP is more energy-efficient as well, reducing an office’s energy costs. Whether an office uses one, two, three or more machines, centralized control over what is printed and who is authorized to use the machines will reduce wasted copies. This step goes hand in hand with an evaluation of the copiers and printers within the organization, to see that they are all configured correctly for the jobs you want them to do.
In addition to measures that will save on paper, consider implementing a paper recycling program. It is also advisable to institute a recycling program for toner and cartridges. One estimate places the number of empty ink and toner cartridges ending up in landfills at 375 million in the United States. Your MPS partner can recommend a good recycling program for you. With recycling, the plastics can be used by the manufacturing companies to make new toner, which recycles and reduces the amount of plastic used in the print space.
This is a glance at a few conservation measures that businesses can employ to do their part to help lower the carbon footprint. In future blogs, we can examine additional energy-saving measures that you can implement, while saving on costs at the same time.
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