80% of printing’s carbon footprint comes from paper waste. So, by reducing paper waste, we can easily dramatically transform the printing carbon footprint.

BY 2050, the UK government has committed to achieving net zero as set out by the Paris Agreement. However, many businesses have planned to decarbonise their organisation ahead of the 2050 target. In striving to achieve this, around 90% of SMEs already recycle toner cartridges and about 80% offer paper recycling facilities. However, there’s a really simple step that would not just reduce further the carbon footprint, it would also reduce your energy bill and the costs involved in recycling.

The missing ingredient in decarbonisation for businesses

So what is the one thing all companies could do to reduce their carbon footprint further? It’s reduce the use of paper in the first instance. Less trees needed, less deforestation, and less energy needed for less recycling.

This can be achieved using company policies such as double-sided only printing, or switching everyone to receive email and document access on their handheld devices, reducing the need to print out documents for meetings and discussions.

However, it could also be achieved by switching the hardware that you have to printers and photocopiers that support positive sustainability behaviours.

Features such as:

Heat-free printing – Systems such as the heat-free printing process pioneered by Epson reduce the actual energy used in the printing process. If Epson isn’t the system that best suits your needs, there are other photocopiers and printers that use a really thin metal sheet to bind the toner to the paper, and these use less energy than their thicker counterparts.

Pull printing – The pull-printing feature does away with neglected copies that are never collected. To action the print, the user must recall the correct document from the printing machine where it will be retrieved.

Eco-settings – These can be set to reduce the amount of toner used and to print double side. A single photocopier on standby over the weekend and through night uses around £63 of electricity per year and results in emissions of 270Kg of carbon dioxide a year, so when it comes to saving money and reducing your carbon footprint, eco settings could be more useful that you imagine.

 Electronic digital management – this allows you to scan, store and distribute documents digitally from the printer, reducing the need for hard copies at all.

Automatic paper size detection – these eliminate the waste that results from the wrong sizes of documents being printed and copied, then abandoned for recycling.

These features can all play their part in helping you achieve the net zero carbon emissions objective and, the exciting thing is, with ASL, you don’t have to wait for the next budgeted outlay for an update. Speak to us today to discover more about updating your printing or copying fleet to deliver more sustainable printing practices within your business. You can contact us by phone or through Ava, our new intelligent assistant.

We’re looking forward to talking with you.