subject: A Few Tips To Update Your Office Into A Paper-free And An Environmentally Conscious Office [print this page] There are a bundle reasons why a company should cut back on paper consumption, for one the blatant environmental benefits, then the amount of money you can save and also because paper is not always the safest way to store private and confidential data.
So if you are considering relocating to a new office then here are some top tips to make that office a paperless and modern office.
1) Firstly, you should use emails rather than paper and snail mail. The most proven and effective way to reduce paper consumption in an office is to use office based computer messaging rather than traditional office letters and memos. If you employ this method you can reduce office expenditure and make employees a lot more efficient and productive as they will no longer have to travel to office when passing on a letter but instead they will be able to click on send to dispatch an email.
2) Marketing materials, journals and even the daily papers can all be received electronically, so there is practically no need to have a cumbersome and out-dated paper copy as well. This is the case as using paper to make magazines is perhaps one of the most, if not the most, wasteful and inefficient use of paper that there has ever been. What I mean by this is that 99 percent of the time papers and magazines just end up in the trash, so it is just a big waste of paper. And if you choose to have a digital copy sent by email then you can be creative with online content and use in an important presentation or business meeting.
3) The key is to evolve, not to be perfect. This is the case as it can be tricky to completely remove the need for a little paper in a working office, so you should rather try to limit its use as much as you can. What you should do is have a realistic picture in your mind of what you can achieve rather than trying to eliminate the use of paper in the office with some sort of paper-dictatorship, which will probably just annoy your office workers and really demoralise them.
4) Maybe a white board could replace the need for post-its. Your staff will need somewhere to make notes and usually this is on a post-it note that is lying around on the desk but in a modern office you may want to use a white board instead. A whiteboard can be used and reused many times and is a good way to jot down reminders or make notes about an important project. As a result a whiteboard can be a great way to reduce the amount of paper that is used in the office.
5) And just so you know it's not all about A4 paper, paper-free means much more. It also means using an air heater to dry your hands in the bathroom rather than paper towels and by replacing paper throw away cups with real and reusable mugs. There are lots of little ways that you can cut back on paper usage, it could just be something as easy as putting up posters give your staff advice on how to save paper.
Some time ago one of our associated companies expanded and moved to an Austin commercial office and they used the office relocation as a way to implement new recycling and paper usage guidelines. When everyone settled into the new procedures the managers found that they were making a substantial saving and also minimising their effect on the environment.
