paper waste white paper

!1Please don't print this document

PAPER WORLD A Business Case For E n v i r o n m e n t a l Responsibility And Cost Control

by Print Manager

SUMMARY The age of the digital office brought the opportunity for a paperless work environment and the promise of greatly reduced environmental impact.

Unfortunately, over the last twenty years the use of paper in a c a d e m i c a n d c o r p o r a t e environments has increased markedly. Unfortunately, the opposite has occurred. Today, 95% of all business information is still stored on paper.

Paper manufacturing uses 324 L of water for every 1 Kg of paper produced, the largest amount of water per pound of any product produced by humanity. The ave rage wor ldw ide paper consumption is 48 Kg per person per year. Paper production has more than doubled over the last two decades and i t s use continues to rise.

Toner costs as of this date are roughly $4,731 per gallon or 937 Euros per liter, among the most expensive per gallon office supplies in existence. The environmental impact of toner cartridges on the environment is dramatic. It takes over a gallon of oil to manufacture the average toner cartridge. There has been


a steady increase in the use of toner cartridges, nearly 12% per year over the past few years. Cartridges are disposed of at a rate of several hundred million per year, and each cartridge takes over 450 years to decompose.

No environmental agency or advocacy group considers the current use of paper and toner a sustainable practice.


From a corporate and academic perspective wasted printing is a financially unsound practice. Most corporations spend 3% or more of their income on printing with 30% - 50% of printing wasted.

Many IT professionals reach what they term, “the last straw.” Even without software to audit what is printed, in many work and academic environments, clear evidence is routinely found in the printer, left as a finished job.


A CULTURE OF FREE PRINTING

Examples from recent surveys have included:

• A 400-page “e-book” left in the printer. • A 250-page manual unrelated to work. • Twenty possible new boyfriends from the website Match.com

• A ream of paper printed with one smiley face in the upper left corner. • A secretary who printed out and filed all of her business e-mails. While this

was printing related to her work, it was extremely wasteful and should have been prohibited.

In each of the above examples, the printer and toner budgets are IT expenditures and part of the IT budget. IT departments are frequently unable to afford proper upgrades or purchase equipment, partially due to the strain of wasteful printing on their existing budgets. With an average of 30% waste in office printing, it can be comparatively easy to find additional funds that can be used for more constructive purposes.

In many offices, government agencies and academia, there is an expected culture of free printing that is very difficult to change with educational means alone. The mindset of many employees is that wasted printing is their right.

In an office of as few as 20 workers, the amount of wasted paper can literally be tons. One average attorney uses over a ton of paper in a year.


A Grim Future In the time it has taken to read this far into this report, an area the size of 20 football fields will be permanently lost for the production of paper.

Our current system of printing and waste has not been sustainable for some time. Like all bubbles, the bubble of cheap printing will burst. Paper and toner prices have already risen substantially over the last few years, squeezing already tight corporate and educational budgets.

Consider the following facts:

• Our current use of paper is not sustainable. Despite the advent of computers and electronic mail, paper consumption has increased.

• Half the world's forests have already been cleared or burned, and 80% of what's left has been seriously degraded.

• The vast majority of mission-critical operations still rely on paper records. • Controls on printing do not exist in most offices, because most managers are

not aware of the extent of the problem. • Asia has surpassed Western Europe in paper consumption and will soon

surpass the United States. Source: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

• The United States Environmental Protection Agency stated that the average US office worker uses two pounds of paper products every day.

• The United States generates 208 million pounds of municipal solid waste per year, roughly 4.3 pounds per person. Half of this is paper waste.

• 77 percent of paper is recycled in the Netherlands.


• 67 percent of paper is recycled in Germany. • 52 percent of paper is recycled in Japan. • 45 percent of paper is recycled in the U.S. • If the United States cut office paper use by only 10% it would prevent the

emission of 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases -- the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road.


SUCCESSFUL CHANGE There are reasons in any organization why things do not change. Managers in IT are often experts in initiating change in otherwise stagnant organizations.

The points below are the common denominators in each successful action plan that has effectively reduced the use of paper and toner in organizations. Many of these institutions seemed intractable, and unable to successfully change. In many cases, the required changes seemed daunting.

It is important to remember that each of these supposedly intractable, unchangeable organizations successfully made the transition to a more cost effective, environmentally -friendly business model.


Moving Toward Action A successful action plan establishes momentum and has the agreement of management. It is vital to have cooperation from the top down through each layer of management. Mired in “other priorities” with staff and IT departments that are understaffed and far too busy, time must be made and forward motion must be established with consistency. Cost saving and environmental considerations must be given a priority, at least temporarily. It is important to remember that waste continues during any delay while other priorities are addressed. Things will not get better by themselves. It is also vital to take any steps possible, as soon as possible, as each portion of the overall plan brings savings and Summary

• Initiate an action plan and see it through until it is complete. • Don’t procrastinate.


Employee Education

The World Commission on Environment and Development defines sustainability as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. (1987) For any action plan to succeed, employees must be involved in the process. The education of employees as to the detrimental effects of wasted printing on the environment has been highly successful in many organizations. There are dozens of environmental studies, scores of websites, and volumes of information that will enlighten employees. Most employees care about the environment and want to do what they can to leave a better world for their children. The educational steps should include the establishment of stated goals, and a development of policies with regard to the use of office paper. Stating both the cost saving and environmental reasons behind the policies can be essential in their acceptance. Summary

• Make sure policy exists and employees understand why.


Tools To Help Managers Effectively Manage Most IT departments are responsible for the printing budget. Unfortunately they do not, or should not have the added duties of jurisdiction over employee behavior. Most managers do not have a full grasp of the extent of the problem. It is vital to know the extent of waste and what is being printed. Is the printing being done really necessary? Many companies significantly reduce printing costs without affecting business operations. Print Manager Plus provides auditing and reporting functions that will generate reports managers can use to evaluate employee paper consumption. It is not only vital to understand the quantities of printing, but what is being printed so that needed corrections can be made. It is helpful to provide these reports to the local managers, who know their workflow and employees well enough to engage in constructive dialogue and constructive solutions. Additional tools are available to managers, including the capacity to electronically set budgets for printing, which not only stops the waste, but reduces the cost of printing to a fixed and definable quantity. Solutions can easily be implemented in such a way that existing workflows are not negatively impacted. Written policy, including revised corporate publishing standards as well as policies regarding printing can be exceptionally effective in reducing printing costs. Summary

• Provide company managers with the tools and information they need to effectively manage their subordinates.


Educational Environments The inevitable use of paper in schools has long been considered part of the educational process. Shortage of paper and toner are common in schools. Though the vast majority of schools have a legitimate need for paper and printing, most schools do not have and enforce strict policies regarding wasted paper.

Much of the paper used in academics is harvested directly from sensitive ecosystems around the world.

Here are ways other schools have successfully decreased the use of paper:

• School systems are using computer software to successfully regulate printing, by setting rules for what can and cannot be printed. This, combined with software to monitor what is being printed and the quantity of printing is the single most effective way to monitor and successfully maintain a reduction in paper consumption.

• Teachers are using electronic means of communication rather than hand written notes to parents.

• Students in many jurisdictions (including Universities) are now able to submit assignments exclusively in electronic formats.

• Double-sided printing has been implemented successfully in many schools, and all documents printed are printed double-sided, reducing paper usage.

• Policies regarding the proper use and printing of documents are detailed in written publishing standards that are distributed (electronically) and made broadly available.


Examples of Action Plans Not long ago, if the paper used by Chicago Public Schools was stacked in a single tower, that tower would be eight times taller than the Sears Tower.

Realizing the problem, Chicago Public Schools began an aggressive campaign to reduce the use and waste of paper. It is called CPS Paper Waste Busters.

There were a number of successful strategies employed that included administrator/ teacher/ student education, the use of PowerPoint presentations instead of handouts and many creative paper-saving policies, and Print Manager Plus which instituted electronic controls that prevented wasted printing.

The result of this action plan was a significant and sustained reduction in the use of paper that benefited the school’s financial bottom line as well as the environment.

A Penn State study completed in 2001 found that by reducing the margins, font size and spacing, the school could reduce paper consumption annually by 67 percent.


ABOUT OUR COMPANY

Print Manager has a simple goal: To help reduce the world's volume of printing by 10%. The cost saving and environmental benefits of what we are capable of doing are amazing.

We are proud of our work, and are pleased to do what we can to make planet Earth a better place. We strongly urge every company to do all they can to benefit the environment and the life outside the workplace.


paper waste white paper

Technology