Reducing paper consumption is simple and easy and will help you cut costs and avoid throwing money in the bin like crumpled notes.

Paper here. Paper there. Paper everywhere! No matter what business you are in, paper is central to communicating within the office: from a simple memo to a fax. Paper is also one of the biggest sources of waste in most offices, with the average office worker using approximately 10,000 sheets of A4 each year.

By not reducing paper consumption, your business could be losing money.

Simple & Easy Steps

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• Thinner Paper: Use 80g paper sheets instead of thicker paper, which is more expensive.
• Print on Both Sides: By setting the printer to print on both sides of the paper by default, this will reduce the amount of paper used and will reduce paper costs.
• Recycle & Reuse: Use recycled paper. Producing recycled paper involves between 30-70% less energy and is cheaper to buy.
• Printing: It is about 50% cheaper to print a document in black and white as oppose to colour.
• Catalogues: If your company has a catalogue, try to adjust your catalogues trim size or basis weight. You may find some cost savings there.

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And Now for Something Daring

The idea of going paperless completely may sound impossible in an office, however with technology at the reach of a keyboard it is not so hard to go almost paperless.
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• Meetings: Conduct paperless meetings. Before a meeting, send around meeting minutes through email and encourage employees to bring their laptops to take notes on.
• Switch from Hard Documents to Digital Ones: Most hard copies that are handed out during meetings get tossed away as soon as the meeting is over. Convert hard documents to digital ones. Distribute them to employees via email, where they will have a likelihood of sticking around after meetings are through.
• E-Fax is Just as Effective: Instead of traditional fax machines that use up excess paper and ink, get an e-fax address which lets you send and receive faxed documents via email.
• Methods of Payment: By offering online billing to customers and giving employees the option of direct deposit for their pay checks, your company will reduce its amount of paper used on payments.

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