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Category: Environmental Impact

Become Paperless

http://156.98.19.245/paper/index.html

Despite your forest of filing cabinets, are you able to find that report you need for your meeting in 5 minutes? Take steps to reduce your consumption of paper and increase efficiency at work to save time, money, and resources. And it’s “3 E-asy.”

The 3 E’s: Economical, Environmental, Efficient

Are you a paper pusher? The typical workplace is hooked on the stuff, with some shocking statistics.

  • The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year.
  • The United States alone, which has less than 5% of the world’s population, consumes 30% of the world’s paper.
  • Over 40% of wood pulp goes toward the production of paper.
  • Printing and writing paper equals about one-half of U.S. paper production.
  • The costs of using paper in the office can run 13 to 31 times the cost of purchasing the paper in the first place!

Economical: Saving paper saves money

You’re probably thinking, “What’s the big deal? My office doesn’t spend much on paper.” But what most people don’t realize is that the cost of buying paper is just the tip of the paper iceberg. For each sheet of paper used, a company incurs not only purchasing costs, but also storage, copying, printing, postage, disposal, and recycling—and it adds up. A recent Minnesota study estimates that associated paper costs could be as much as 31 times the purchasing costs (not including labor). So, that ream of paper that you paid $5 for really could cost up to $155!

  • Citigroup, a large financial services company, determined that if each employee used double-sided copying to conserve just one sheet of paper each week, the firm would save $700,000 each year.
  • Bank of America cut its paper consumption by 25% in two years by increasing the use of on-line forms and reports, e-mail, double-sided copying, and lighter-weight paper.

Environmental: Saving paper reduces our impact

Paper is an office necessity for some essential tasks, but it has an environmental cost. Creating paper from trees requires a lot of natural resources: trees, water, and energy.

  • It takes more than 1½ cups of water to make one sheet of paper. (Picture a typical soda can.)
  • Over 40% of wood pulp goes toward the production of paper.
  • Reducing paper use reduces greenhouse gases: 40 reams of paper is like 1.5 acres of pine forest absorbing carbon for a year.
  • Even with recycling efforts, paper makes up over 25% of Minnesota’s garbage—we’re throwing away a lot of resources!

Efficient: Saving paper increases efficiency

Paperwork! It brings to mind filling out unnecessarily complicated forms. Electronic forms can now make that job easier and more efficient. Businesses that have converted to electronic forms and filing systems have found that it takes less time to both find and process information. This doesn’t mean that electronic forms should replace all paper. In some instances, paper will be the best tool, but most businesses find that reducing their paper use increases their efficiency. Whenever we have fewer sheets of paper in our homes and offices, we spend less time looking for those that are misplaced or lost.

  • Success story: When Wilderness Inquiry moved its registration forms online, they found boosts in productivity and customer satisfaction.

Tips for reducing office paper waste

Use both sides

Use the front and back of a piece of paper and cut your paper use and costs in half.

  • Set computer defaults to print double-sided.
  • Make double-sided copies when possible.
  • Give it a second chance: Use paper printed on only one side in your fax machine, for draft copies or internal documents, or as scratch paper.

Think before you print or copy

Sometimes it is necessary for documents to be printed. Print responsibly.

  • Preview documents before printing. Use the print preview to spot formatting errors and blank pages before you print. Proofread first, and use the spell/grammar tool to help avoid errors that can cause documents to be reprinted.
  • Print only the pages you need. If only a few pages of the document are needed, print only those pages instead of the whole report. Most software programs provide this option under the print function.
  • Promote a “think before you copy” attitude. Consider sharing some documents with co-workers. Print only the number of copies needed for the meeting, don’t make extras.

Go electronic

  • Route memos and newsletters that employees should see, but do not need to keep. That way newsletters and other documents can be shared rather than copied.
  • Use revision features in word processing software. You can edit documents on screen instead of printing out drafts and making hand-written comments.
  • Send information electronically. Use e-mails instead of fax or mailed letters when possible. It’s faster.
  • Fit more words onto each page (e.g., smaller font, narrower margins). Simply changing the default margins from 1.25″ to 1″ can reduce the amount of paper you use by up to 8%. Use a space-efficient font like Times New Roman.
  • Create an electronic filing system for quick, easy retrieval.

Keep forms and lists up-to-date

  • Reduce unwanted mail. Much of the marketing mail that your office receives is discarded immediately, and you foot the bill for recycling or disposal, not to mention the time it takes to sort and deliver mail. Cut down on the amount of unwanted mail by keeping your employees’ names off of mail lists to begin with. (Reduce the Hail of Unwanted Mail)
  • Eliminate unnecessary forms. Sometimes documents become obsolete and are no longer needed. If forms are still needed consider making them electronic.

Close the loop on recycling

  • Recycle office paper. If your office doesn’t recycle yet, start a recycling office paper program. It can save your organization money. Your county solid waste office can help.
  • Buy recycled-content paper, preferably made from paper pulp recycled without the use of chlorine.

Be nice to your copier…

and your copier will be nice to you. Keep copiers and printers in good repair and make it policy to only buy copiers and printers that make reliable double-sided copies. Let your copier maintenance person know when a copier is performing poorly (toner is low, jams frequently, etc.). Regular copier maintenance is important, especially if the toner is low. Copiers are often used until all the toner is gone and that wears down machines. A copier that works well is less likely to jam and this helps save paper!

Compound savings

Think about that 10-page, single-sided report you’re dropping in the mail. You need an extra stamp, don’t you? Take that same report and send it double-sided. Now you’ve cut your paper cost in half, and you don’t need to pay the extra postage.

by Kelle on March 16, 2010
filed in Environmental Impact
tagged ,

The Paperless office

A paperless office is a work environment at which the use of paper is eliminated or wisely used. “Going Paperless” can save money, boost productivity, save space, make electronic documentation and information sharing easier and minimize environmental damage. The paperless office as a concept is of course not only limited to the office.

History

The paperless office was a publicist’s slogan, meant to describe the office of the future. The basic idea was that office automation would make paper redundant for routine tasks such as record-keeping and bookkeeping. The idea came to prominence with the introduction of the personal computer. While the prediction of a PC on every desk was remarkably prescient, the ‘paperless office’ was less prophetic. Improvements in printers and photocopiers have made it much easier to reproduce documents in bulk, word-processing has deskilled secretarial work involved in writing those documents, the ease of communicating over email has greatly increased the number of documents printed and the result is the proliferation of paper.

An early prediction of the paperless office was made in a Business Week article in 1975.[1]

The computer’s impact

Contrary to the predictions of the paperless office, the introduction of computers increased paper use, with worldwide use of office paper more than doubling from 1980 to 2000.[2] This has been attributed to the increased ease of document production[2] – rather than needing to type a document up, one may easily print out multiple copies, email it to someone who then prints out a copy, print out a web page, and so forth. However, since about 2000, global use of office paper has leveled off and is now decreasing, which has been attributed to a generation shift,[2] younger people being less inclined to print out documents, and more inclined to read them on a screen.

Paperless versus traditional office philosophy

A traditional office consisted of paper-based filing systems, which may have included filing cabinets, folders, shelves, microfiche systems, and drawing cabinets, all of which take up considerable space, requiring maintenance and equipment.

Meanwhile, a paperless office could simply consist of a desk, chair, and computer (with a modest amount of local or network storage) and the user could use and store all the information in digital form, including speech recognition and speech synthesis.

Three easy steps to start a paperless office are to think before you ink, preview your documents, and print to PDF.[3]

Metaphor and philosophy

Paperless office is also a metaphor for the touting of new technology in terms of ‘modernity’ rather than its actual suitability to purpose.[4]

The paperless office is also considered to be a philosophy geared towards working with a minimal amount of paper, employ processes and systems that eliminate the need for paper altogether and to convert all forms of documentation to digital form.

Eliminating paper via automation and enterprise forms automation

The primary way to go paperless is to make use of a system or set of systems that work entirely online and without the need to print paper. Many examples of this are already in use by businesses including financial systems that replaced general ledgers, databases replacing index cards and rolodexes, email replacing type-written letters and faxes, the internet replacing reference books (e.g. phone books, vendor catalogs, encyclopedias, etc).[5]

Another way to eliminate paper is by automating paper-based processes that rely on forms, applications and surveys to capture and share data. This method is referred to as ‘Enterprise Forms Automation’ and is typically accomplished by using existing print-perfect documents in electronic format to allow for pre-filling of existing data, capturing data manually entered online by end-users, providing secure methods to submit form data to processing systems and digitally signing the electronic documents without printing.

The technologies that may be used with Enterprise Forms Automation include -

* Form Technology (e.g. Adobe PDF) – to create, display and interact with documents and forms
* Enterprise Forms Automation software – to integrate forms and form data with processing systems
* Databases – used to capture data for prefilling and processing documents
* Workflow platforms – used to route information, documents and direct process flow
* Digital signature solutions – used by end-users to digitally sign documents
* Web servers – used to host the process, receive submitted data, store documents and manage document rights

One of the main issues that has kept companies from adopting paperwork automation is capturing digital signatures in a cost-effective and compliant manner. With the E-Sign Act of 2000 Congress made it a law that a document cannot be rejected on the basis of an electronic signature and all companies must accept digital signatures on documents. Today there are sufficient cost-effective options available, including solutions that do not require end-users to purchase hardware or software.

Digitalizing paper-based documents

Another key aspect of the paperless office philosophy is the conversion of paper documents, photos, engineering plans, microfiche and all the other paper based systems to digital documents. The technologies that may be used include -

* Scanners
* High speed scanners – used for scanning very large volumes of paper.
* Book copiers – used for taking photos of large books and manuscripts.
* Wide format scanners – used for scanning engineering drawings.
* Photo scanners
* Negative scanners
* Microfiche scanner – used to convert microfiche to digital documents.
* Laserfiche convert microfiche to searchable and digital
* Digitization of postal mail – provides online access of scanned contents.
* Fax to PDF conversion
* Online post offices – outsourcing management of snail mail
* Multifunction printer
* Document management system

Each of the technologies uses software that converts the raster formats (bitmaps) into other forms depending on need. Generally, they involve some form of image compression technology that produces smaller raster images or the use of optical character recognition (OCR) to convert the document to text. A combination of OCR and raster is used to enable search ability while maintaining the original form of the document.

An issue faced by those wishing to take the paperless philosophy to the limit has been copyright laws. These laws restrict the transfer of documents protected by copyright from one medium to another, such as converting books to electronic format.

An important step in the paper-to-digital conversion is the need to label and catalog the scanned documents. Such labeling allows the scanned documents to be searched. Some technologies have been developed to do this, but generally involves either human cataloging or automated indexing on the OCR document.

However, scanners and software continue to improve, with small, portable scanners that are able to scan doubled-sided A4 documents at around 30-35ppm to a raster format (typically TIFF fax 4 or PDF).

Difficulties in adapting the paperless office

There may be costs and temporarily productivity losses involved when adapting to the paperless office concept. Government regulations and business policy may also slow down the adoption.

Businesses must overcome technological difficulties such as file format comparability, longevity of digital documents, system stability and making sure employees and clients have the technology skills required.

by Kelle on March 16, 2010
filed in Environmental Impact
tagged , ,
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