Going Green: How to Go Paperless at Your Business
The average person generates 4.3 pounds of waste per day, according to Duke University, and much of that comes from the private sector. In fact, there are 251 million tons of municipal waste generated each year in the United States. However, by taking steps to reduce waste, businesses can reduce overhead, conserve natural resources, reduce waste disposal costs, and boost employee morale by giving employees an opportunity to save the environment.
From child-care facilities to municipal governments, more and more organizations are adopting green practices. In fact, SkyChildCare, a web-based software for managing day care centers, was founded because of the demand to go digital in the education space. “Enrollment, class management, tuition collection, and teacher/parent communication are all digitally provided with this solution so day-care centers eliminate paperwork and focus on what really matters—the children,” says SkyChildCare co-founder Shourya Ray. However, there are still many organizations that waste hundreds of pounds of paper each year.
If your office hasn’t adopted green practices yet, listen up. Here are five simple ways to reduce or eliminate paper within your office:
1. Migrate to the Cloud
Cloud computing is essentially Internet-based computing. Cloud computing allows your company to deploy IT infrastructure as a service, typically with a pay as you go model that makes it easy to manage costs while adding or dialing down computing resources as needed, of Nuance.
Google applications like Google Drive, Gmail, and Hangouts are all user-friendly paperless technologies. Onit is another cloud-based tool for "anyone and everyone who manage projects - big, small, business, legal.” A big problem with cloud computing is the need for a powerful technical solutions to support “the cloud.” If you increase server bandwidth with storage provisioning like the Citrix provisioning server, you should have optimal performance despite the larger load.
2. Use Online Faxing
“More companies rely on scanning and faxing than you would imagine, despite the prevalence of online and digital solutions,” notes Forbes contributor Kate Harrison. Applications like eFax.com and MyFax.com are economical and ecofriendly ways to relay important documents. Both of these online tools convert your documents into PDFs for seamless emailing, leaving paper in the dust
3. Digitize Your Meetings
Say goodbye to printed out meeting agendas. Instead use a technology called TeamViewer, which allows meeting members to view presentations, transmit videos, share files, and teleconference. You can assign members of the meeting to “drive” the presentation, then use Google Drive to send meeting recaps.
4. Adopt a Company-wide Email Signature
Ask all employees to copy and paste one of the following messages within their email signatures:
- “Go Green, Go Paperless”
- “Think Before You Print”
- “We Are Green - Are You?”
- “Think Before You Ink”
Sometimes that extra nudge helps. Plus, people outside your organization will see the message and might follow suit.
5. Think Outside of Your Office Walls
Instead of using paper towels in your organization’s restrooms, install hand dryers like the eco-friendly Xcelerator. Any effort to eliminate waste helps!
The key to going green and reducing your paper trail within your enterprise is education. Promote and implement your “paperless” program. Establish monitoring and evaluation procedures, and above else, make it fun! Reward employees that have gone the extra mile to go paperless.
Forgo paper to decrease your environmental footprint, and save money in the process.
