In recent years business owners and decision makers have discovered that keeping their operations, suppliers and practices as green as possible is a vital part of growing success.
Find an eco-friendly supplier
Because of the nature of print practices chances are you receive goods or services from a number of different suppliers. Finding out how environmentally responsible they are can feel daunting. But, because of the growing desire to be eco-friendly in business, most suppliers will go to the trouble to get certification proving their green rating. Talk to your supplier or visit their website to see what certification they have. And, if it’s hard to find an answer, chances are they aren’t as green as they should be.
Double-check the need to print
Printing costs money and uses resources, which puts a strain on the environment through waste and landfill. Making sure your employees really need to print a document could result in them finding other solutions or at least questioning if they really need to print a document that could perhaps be viewed online. One of the ways to make printing less convenient is by embedding a double confirmation in the printer itself. This works by queuing print requests as the printer receives them, then asking the employee to confirm their print via a pass code specific to them. It’s a lot of hassle if you don’t really need to print, and could cut paper and ink use, not to mention waste, dramatically.
Cut the need for recycling
While filling up the recycling bin with wasted print paper might make Jane in Accounts feel smug and virtuous, it’s not a perfect solution. Every piece of recycling in that bin has to go through a process of actually being recycled, which creates greenhouse gas emissions and harms the environment. While it’s still better than landfill, the ideal situation is to not use the resources in the first place and only print what you really need.



