Focus on the Environment by Becoming Paperless
Many organizations are shifting their focus to become more environmentally conscious and improve their corporate social responsibility (CSR), and there are plenty of undeniable benefits to it. Whether you are working to continuously improve your company image, are looking for 3rd party certification, or even if you’re simply trying to showcase your company values, you can work to become more environmentally conscious by reducing (or eliminating!) your company’s reliance on paper.
The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year, 45% of that paper ends up being thrown out each day. Even if your organization only has 50 employees, that’s still 225,000 sheets being thrown out annually or 11,250 lbs. of paper (nearly the weight of 3 cars!). You may not consider your organization to be “green” but it’s still important to consider your environmental impact, as well as the additional benefits to reducing your paper usage.
Many organizations don’t put reduce their negative environmental impact at the top of their priorities. But even if the environment is not a key focus, reducing paper usage can still benefit your bottom line. By going green, you can easily save some green. Businesses annually spend about $1,367 per employee annually on printing supplies alone. By becoming paperless you can easily offset a good portion of that cost, as well as the cost incurred from loss of productivity from searching for or correcting files.
How can your organization go paperless?
- If there are certain things you must print, consider doing it on the backside of recycled paper (as long as it doesn’t have confidential information). By doing this you’ll reduce the amount of paper you throw away, and save money by not needing to buy nearly as many sheets.
- If there are invoices, purchase orders, or other forms that need approval from different managers company-wide, utilize an enterprise content management (ECM) system to share, markup, and approve any important documents. Paper-heavy departments such as accounting and human resources can directly benefit from an innovative ECM.
- Utilize web forms to complete commonly used forms rather than print out multiples of the same form
- Rather than throw away unused paper, look to see if your city has a single stream recycling program you can participate in. If there are pages with sensitive information that you aren’t sure about, you can invest in a paper shredder or find a local shredding day to be able to utilize an industrial shredder.
- Keep all your employee records on a digital database. Instead of taking up space with full filing cabinets, scan your current records into an ECM. For future employees consider utilizing online forms to complete new hire paperwork, including benefit elections, i4’s, W-9’s, and direct deposit.
These are just a few of the ways your organization can work to become paperless, and often once you move forward with one method, the others aren’t so far behind! By starting off your process to become greener with ECM, you can often snowball your environmental impact and immediately notice the benefits of utilizing a smart digital storage solution. The team at Mosaic can help you learn more about how your individual organization can directly benefit from DocStar ECM. Learn more by contacting us.
