Thoughts on your office environment for Earth Day 2013

Today is Earth Day, and all over the world more than 1 billion people are celebrating by driving green initiatives like cleaning, planting and recycling. On this special day activists, governments, and NGOs try to drive more awareness about the current environmental issues and what we can do to help protect our Earth and preserve our natural resources.

Though green issues such as climate change have become a major part of our daily life, many people still find it difficult to sustain it in their working environments. Business Printing is one of the areas where you too can make a difference. We can’t give up printing and in fact it is our duty not to, but how we print is what makes all the difference when it comes to our impact on the environment. So today we are going to show you in three simple steps how your business can score double by cutting down its printing cost and carbon foot print at the same time.

Smarter printing

At first glance it may be hard to see how moving print from a specialist supplier to in-house could have such a dramatic impact both on costs and on carbon emissions. The explanation, though, is simple: if you print in-house then you print precisely what you want, when you want it and where you want it. You might call this smarter printing.

Every business requires stationery: letterheads, invoice blanks and so on. Traditionally this stationery is pre-printed in advance, and because of the economies of scale when using an external supplier, items are usually ordered in large quantities. You pay for a large amount of paper, tying up cash. You spend energy moving it from the print shop to your premises and, if you have multiple locations, to probably pay again to move it from the headquarters to these other branches. You have to provide storage for it and if any detail changes – a new address, membership of a new trade body, an update in the corporate identity, maybe the addition of your environmental certification details – then the paper is just scrap to be delivered (more carbon) to a recycling plant.

So, why outsource when you can do it in house?

Online information

The last few years have seen a marked change in the way that brochures and data sheets are used. Gone now are the days when if someone was interested in a product they called the company who put a glossy brochure into an envelope and mailed it. Today the expectation is that all this information will be available on the web, and while brochures still exist they are formatted to be downloaded and printed out remotely.

Again there is no need to print large quantities of brochures in advance. If you need ten copies to display in a reception area, print out ten copies. If you need 100 copies for an exhibition then print out 100 copies. And if the exhibition is in Las Vegas or Beijing then print them there, rather than shipping them around the world. This provides more benefits than you can shake a stick at. It saves money and it reduces the carbon footprint, but it also means that you can make changes to your document as they happen.

Managed printing

These real savings are realised readily, by taking a managed approach to printing. Identify what your requirements are and install the hardware you need to support it accurately. The network design will ensure that staff has access to the right printer at the right time. Multi-page documents should be routed to duplex devices for double-sided printing to halve the paper cost.

These are simple steps but can deliver cost savings to a business of as much as 30%. By printing what you need exactly when you need it you eliminate waste, and by printing what you need at the exact location you need it you save the cost, and environmental impact, of shipping it.

While achieving best environmental practices can be challenging for a business, particularly in the current climate, there are areas where going green does not inevitably cost money. Taking a fresh look at printing can be good for your business while fulfilling your Corporate Social Responsibility at the same time.

Going Green: Celebrating Earth Day by Fulfilling our Duty toward our Planet

We live in a time where global warming and climate change are critical issue facing the world and generations to come. As the international community continues the discussion on what can be done to confront and solve these issues for the sake of our planet, organizations are also beginning to realize that they too play a role in contributing to a low carbon society. The question is, are ENOUGH organizations taking issues like energy consumption, environmental saving, and environmental protection into consideration?  Our research has shown that UAE businesses are wasting millions of dirhams per year on avoidable energy costs.

Energy efficiency should be a collective effort by organizations and individuals alike to work toward greener communities and a greener society at large. In order to encourage individuals and families to adopt greener habits in their personal life, organizations should increase emphasis on educating employees on what they can do to contribute to a better environment. Taking the environment into consideration should be a critical component of your organization’s value system as a whole. At OKI Group, we consider the mitigation of climate change and the realization of a low carbon society as two critical issues on our agenda. We’ve been active in an ongoing campaign to promote “Green IT.” After all, IT is what we do best.

Our world today is highly advanced technologically. From sending a simple text message to transporting ourselves from home to work, we depend on IT in many aspects of our lives. While it is a challenge, we believe that adopting a green approach to developing IT devices can have a significant impact on energy consumption across the world. Since 1998, OKI Group has made a deliberate effort in conducting environmental assessments in the design phase of product development, comparing each product to its predecessors. We call this “Green of IT.”

On the other hand, the efficient use of IT is also critical to the reduction of CO2 emissions. As a carbon-neutral company, we’ve developed technologies such as CoolClover and Web Sensing which allow users to manage energy as well as track and collect environmental information. In a sense, we use technology to further enhance technology with the aim of being friendlier to the environment, hence why we call it “Green By IT.

Here are some simple tips to consider when going green:

• Calculate your emissions in order to plan where you should start when it comes to reducing your footprint. You can calculate your business’s CO2 emissions at: http://www.climatecare.org/business/business-co2-calculator/
• You’d be surprised to know that many office appliances continue to consume energy even when they are idle. Invest in green office technology or optimize your energy settings to save money and reduce energy consumption in the long run.
• Don’t print unnecessarily. Of course, there are cases when hard copies of documents are required, but one of the benefits of living in the digital age is that it has actually become more convenient to store and share documents electronically. Ask yourself, “do I NEED to print?”
• Keep a recycling bin next to the printer to collect scrap paper. Much of what we print we dispose of, so rather than wasting paper, recycle your unneeded paper documents.

Happy Earth Day to everyone around the world =)