Reducing your business’s paper usage is a great way to go green. It’s not that difficult to do, although you do have to be prepared to commit to making some changes. Some techniques for using less paper can save you a lot of money, while others might cost some money to implement. But if you want to make a change and contribute to saving the environment, while also making your business more efficient at the same time, it’s a great change to make. Have a look at some of the ways you could be using less paper and streamlining your business.
Use Digital Tools
There are many digital tools that you can use to reduce paper usage for your business. Some moves are simple, such as opting to have online statements for your bank accounts, instead of getting them mailed to you. Other things that can help include tools for document management, workflow or collaboration. At www.papersave.com, you can see how a document management system might help you. By storing files digitally, you can avoid a lot of paper usage. People can access the documents they need on any device, and there should be less need for printing or photocopying.
Canva and Visme are great tools you can use for all your graphic design needs including creating a free organizational chart.
Reuse Paper and Print/Copy on Both Sides
When you do have to print things out or perhaps create some photocopies, you can make sure that you use the paper as sensible as possible. Avoid just printing on one side of the paper, and you could cut your paper use in half. You can even reuse paper that has only been printed on one side – if you want to avoid confusion, just cross out the now irrelevant side, so people know which one to look at. You could turn paper that has been printed on one side into notepads too, giving people free paper to write on.
Get Rid of Printers and Photocopiers
How often do people in your office really need to print things out or photocopy documents? If you’re trying to encourage them to do it less, but they can’t resist the temptation, consider taking away some printers and photocopiers. Reduce the equipment you have so that access isn’t so easy. You could even make sure only a few people have the code to access your printer or photocopier to prevent everyone from using it too much. No one should need to use them all the time in this digital world.
Stop Junk Mail
It’s not just you that can produce a lot of paper. Other businesses do it too, send it to you, and leave you to deal with it. Junk mail can be a pain, but there are ways of preventing it. There are several organizations that provide direct mail lists that you can contact and tell them to remove your business. You can opt out of offers for credit cards and insurance too. If you can’t be bothered to do this yourself, it is possible to pay someone to remove your name from various mailing lists.
Get rid of some of the paper your business uses to make it a more eco-friendly and better organized place.