Turning it off

HP's UK branch has released a short online publication called “The HP Guide for Greener Printing” available here online.

Most of the advice is pretty obvious, with encouragement to print in duplex, send more documents electronically, and recycle paper.

On interesting point is made, however, about the effect of letting printers and copiers run when not in use. “All office equipment uses energy when switched on or in stand-by mode. In the UK alone, equipment left on standby is responsible for generating over 3 million tonnes of CO2 each year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.”

Of course, many copiers and some printers have sleep modes that are automatically triggered if left idle for a preset period (generally somewhere between five and 60 minutes) , or can be set to go off ready automatically during non-working hours. That’s part of the new EnergyStar criteria for newer machines, and many companies are complying. But many older desktop machines in particular do not offer any sleep feature. Having employees shut down desktop printers and MFPs at the end of the day may be a smart idea.

Xerox Green Survey

In time for Earth Day, a recent survey by Xerox asked US office workers about the "non-green” practices in their offices. According to Xerox, the biggest gripes about companies’ lack of environmental awareness were::

* mindless printing resulting in abandoned pages at the printer (40 percent)
* leaving lights on in unused offices (37 percent)
* lack of recycling bins (33 percent)
* excessive air conditioning or heating (29 percent)
* wasteful use of paper products, such as plates and cups (27 percent)
* co-workers who don't recycle (27 percent)
* co-workers who print single-sided instead of double-sided documents (24 percent).

The survey also noted that environmental awareness is often a function of age, where younger employees tend to be more green-oriented. It also noted that women tend to be more eco-conscious than men.

It’s interesting that many of these issues have to do with printing, an area where users themselves have some control over the waste.

.

Cutting back on printing

A recent InformationWeek article (“Biltmore Hotels Save Paper, Printing Costs Through Digitized Docs,” 2/12/08) reports on the attempt of the CIO of a hotel chain to cut back on steadily rising print costs. As the article points out “it's difficult to reduce paper and ink consumption when the effort flies in the face of people's office habits.”

The Biltmore chain has over 500 employees in its Florida headquarters. It had 41 printers and the number has been growing. So he:
▪ Reduced the printers to 9, while adding a few more copier-multifunctionals.
▪ Actively pushed two-sided printing and copying.
▪ Showed employees how to work with digital documents (PDFs) instead of printing everything out.
▪ Set up copiers so users had to swipe ID cards to use them and starting billing print costs back to departments.
▪ Limited use of color to certain employees with real need to use color.

The result is that the CIO “has cut what used to be a $3,400 budget for paper and ink cartridges by 75%.” He has also focused on getting departments to be far more digital in the way they handle documents. The HR department, for example, has now placed all records online, for example, and gotten rid of all of its filing cabinets.

None of this is any surprise, but it is a good indication that a strong push can transform old habits and save money and that such an effort can pay off.

OKI survey on printing

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are paying a price for unmanaged printing costs. That’s according to a survey just released by OKI Data Americas. The company surveyed 700 IT professionals from SMBs across the U.S. and found very little in the way of serious cost controls in place. Such companies are far less in control of printing costs than larger companies, and the headache is growing. (Small businesses are defined as those with 1-99 employees, while medium businesses have 100-999 employees.)

The survey found that:
• Over half of SMBs expect to print either the same amount or more in the future as they do currently
• Seventy-seven percent of SMBs still prefer to review just about everything on paper rather than onscreen. Meaning they print out almost everything.
• SMBs report that fifteen percent of jobs printed are non-work related (as opposed to seven percent at large companies).

In general, few companies had any real control of how much was being printed, who was printing, on what devices, and at what cost. OKI proposes a printing needs assessment, extended use of administrative tools, and the education of users to avoid paper and toner waste.

Paper Mountains

A recent survey in the UK indicates that office workers print out “a paper mountain more than eight miles high every year.” The survey, commissioned by Fujitsu and Siemens, concluded that half of the pages printed in a typical office went unread.

According to a story in London newspaper The Telegraph (“UK offices 'print paper mountains', 10/15/07), the average office worker has grown used to “carefree printing habits.” Half of the workers surveyed admitted that they had printed out the same pages more than once by mistake.

According to the Telegraph story “Two in five workers (43 per cent) said they had picked up someone else's print-out by mistake and 8 per cent admitted to printing emails before they had read them.”

In other interesting results from the survey:
▪ Three out of four workers says that they have fixed paper jams themselves.
▪ Two thirds say that they have changed toner.
▪ A quarter said that they had walked away from an out of order printer, letting someone else fix it. (I’m sure someone is lying here)
▪ 17 percent admitted they just threw printed pieces away with no thought of recycling.
▪ Two-thirds of UK firms provided paper recycling bins, and almost half had ways for recycling confidential materials.

These are figures for the UK, but the US results are probably no different and may even be worse. If the UK has paper mountains, the US has Himalayas. And since the survey was based on self-reporting, you can be sure that the numbers look better than they really are.

Not surprisingly, two-thirds of all companies had no policies setting guidelines for what should be printed. It’s not simply a matter of “saving trees,” though that is important. It’s the enormous expense that unneeded printing costs in both paper and toner, and wear and tear on equipment. As has often been pointed out, printing and copying costs are one of the least controlled areas of office expense, and few companies have even a clear idea of what they are paying for it.