With businesses of all shapes and sizes looking for ways to reduce the impact they have on the environment, looking at your printing habits is a great place to start – energy consumption, toner and paper waste. Read on to see top tips from our Document & Solutions Manager – Martin Gardner.
- Make an instant impact by encouraging your team to think before they print – Does the document need to be printed? If yes, are they able to:
- Reduce the font size or page margins to fit more content onto one page.
- Remove bold headers and use ink-saving fonts such as Calibri, Century Gothic or Times New Roman.
- Switch to a greyscale or an eco-friendly printing mode.
- Adopt a double-sided policy and reuse paper wherever possible – did you know on average every worker will print 6,000 sheets a year, of which 3,720 are wasted or unnecessary! [1]
- Do you always collect all your print jobs from the printer? It is often too easy for someone to just press the print button. Set your multifunctional printer to hold print jobs, so they will only be printed once the user has released it at the device – saving paper and ink from prints that are never collected.
- Use recycled paper – did you know that the production of 100,000 sheets of paper from a new source has a carbon footprint of 6,000kg, whereas the same amount of recycled paper recycled seven times has a life-cycle footprint of 3,200kg. That’s a 47% saving! [2]
- Recycle where possible – paper, toner cartridges and old printers. Did you know that it can take up to 1000 years for a cartridge to decompose and every year in the UK around 45,000,000 of cartridges end up in landfill. [3]
- Minimise power consumption – leaving the office overnight, or for the weekend? Turn off your printer when it’s not in demand and activate standby modes during the day when not in use to save electricity.
- Make use of all the functionalities your multifunctional printer offers such as scan to email capabilities reducing the need to print and mail hardcopies of documents and setup document management & workflow solutions.
- Select an eco-friendly multifunctional printer for your office (Energy Star Certified). There’s a wide range to choose from if you’re serious about improving your business’ green credentials. Do your research before you buy one to ensure you get the best model to suit your business and you’ll soon be saving energy and money as you print.
Sources
[1] Rethinking printing Environmental Survey
[2] Good stats on carbon saving
[3] Zero Waste Recycling
