With weather becoming more extreme and temperatures hitting record highs, there’s a renewed awareness on global warming. Whether you’re an individual, company, or government entity, the fight against climate change is something that involves us all. Something your business can do is focus on environmentally sustainable business practices and lower your carbon footprint. One way you can reduce your overall carbon footprint is to use managed print services.
What Are Managed Print Services?
From suddenly running out of ink to wasting paper, there are many inefficiencies that can come with managing a printer on your own. Not only can inefficiencies and technical issues cost you money, but they are also a pain in the neck to keep track of. If you’re tired of dealing with these annoyances, simplify your life with managed print services.
If you’re not familiar with managed print services, it’s a solution where you outsource the management of your printing efforts to a third-party provider. The vendor takes charge of your printing needs while optimizing your processes for maximum efficiency. This can include dealing with supply acquisition, implementation, support, repair, and more.
What Is a Carbon Footprint?
A carbon footprint refers to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other carbon compounds emitted from the consumption of fossil fuels by a person, group, organization, or country. When we say consumption of fossil fuels, we don’t just mean how often you drive. The activities you do and purchases you make both impact your carbon footprint.
For example, fossil fuels are required to make plastics, so buying or not recycling plastic can raise your footprint. The same is true when you heat your office or when you cook your dinner. If you’d like to find out what your own carbon footprint is, you can use this calculator to find out.
Why Is Your Carbon Footprint Important?
Anything you can do to reduce your carbon footprint helps in the fight against global warming. It’s a crucial issue that affects everyone that lives on Earth. Whether you care about global warming or not, there’s a business-related reason why your company should care about reducing its footprint: your customers.
According to a recent study, 9 out of 10 business leaders believe consumers would hold them accountable for the environmental impact they make. Consumers actively seek out environmentally conscious companies and are willing to avoid companies based on their carbon footprint track record. As a result, it’s in your best interest to focus on green initiatives.
What Does Managed Print Services Have To Do With Carbon Footprints?
There are many ways your organization can be more environmentally conscious, but one way that’s often overlooked is your printing and copying habits. Not only does your printer and copier use electricity produced by fossil fuels, but the paper you use requires cutting down trees. In many cases, printers and copiers generate some of the highest outputs of carbon in an office.
The goal of managed print services is to make sure your company is using your printer or copier as efficiently as possible. With this goal, managed print services can help you achieve carbon neutral printing by:
Reducing Paper Waste
The typical office uses a mind boggling amount of paper per day. It’s estimated that U.S. offices use 12.1 trillion sheets of paper per year on average. A lot of that paper finds its way to the trash because of mistakes, reprints, technical issues, and more. The problem is, paper requires trees, which help remove CO2 from the atmosphere, to be cut down.
A managed print service provider can help in this area by reducing the amount of paper you use in your office. Your provider can implement policies like pull printing and setting duplex printing (printing on both sides) as the default. These changes help you reduce paper waste and also printing costs.
Another step that a managed print service provider can take is implement active monitoring. This allows your vendor to monitor how your printer is being used. If a department is abusing their printing privileges, your provider can identify them and notify you.
Recycling Toner Cartridges
One of the most tangible ways that managed print services can affect your carbon footprint is through toner recycling. Did you know that the plastic used for toner cartridges are made from highly durable plastic and can take 1,000 years to break down? You don’t want something like that just sitting in a landfill. Incinerating a cartridge can also produce smog.
A managed print services provider that offers a toner cartridge recycling program can take care of the cartridge in a safe way. Once you fill up the recycle bin they provide you with, they pick it up. From there, the cartridges are sent through a closed loop recycling process that creates new cartridges.
Replacing Your Printer
If one of your printers is on the older end of the spectrum, it’s highly likely it uses more electricity than the other printers in your office. The older technology gets, the less efficient it becomes, which can lead to increased energy consumption. Additionally, older devices don’t tend to have energy-saving features like sleep modes, LEDs instead of lasers, and so on.
When you partner with a managed print services provider, they can help you source new equipment that isn’t so power hungry. You could even lease the hardware if you aren’t interested in purchasing a new device. For example, Americom offers printer and copier leasing.
Go Green With Americom
If you want to optimize your printing habits, reach out to Americom. Through our managed print services, we help you reduce costs and lower your carbon footprint. We do everything from system assessments to software implementation.
Contact us today to learn more.
