The idea of going paperless has been around for several years but few businesses have been able to put the idea into practice, with paper being an integral part of many offices worldwide. In fact, Key Digital claim the average worker is still printing 10,000 sheets in their workplace annually, and that doesn’t even account for domestic paper usage. Pressure has been increasing for businesses in recent years to reduce deforestation, combat climate change, reduce their carbon footprints and install measures to become more environmentally aware. One of the most obvious, and relatively easy, measures to implement is going paperless, or paper-lite which is a popular new buzzword for reducing paper usage rather than removing it altogether.
Not only can reducing paper usage help your business reputationally, but there are plenty of benefits too. Moving to digital practices can save employees hours of administrative time searching for documents, scanning, printing and filing giving them more time to spend on valuable tasks. In fact, did you know that employees loose a staggering 40% of their time searching for paper documents?
Moving to a paperless system will also save you money on ink, paper and printer maintenance, and security is vastly improved too as digital platforms are password encrypted and storing documents online protects you from losing everything in natural disasters such as fires or floods. It’s also very easy for paper documents to fall into the wrong hands, especially as 20% of print jobs are left on the printer and 50% of printing goes straight into the bin.
Whilst businesses struggle to implement paperless systems, or just don’t want to, it is becoming easier thanks to the growing usage of technology. Let’s look at some ways you can reduce your paper usage quickly and easily by enabling some of the technological advances:
Whilst it can be a challenge for businesses to go paperless, for any forward-thinking business going paper-lite at least as a starting point is essential in a world which is needing to implement green measures and combat climate change quickly. Technology has made it easier than ever before to go paperless with the introduction of self-service systems, electronic document storage capabilities and online invoicing options, but as with most changes, small steps are advisable to begin with. The smallest of steps initially such as double-sided printing and replacing letters with emails are big steps to becoming paper-lite and improving your environmental credentials.
For more information about software from Pegasus which can help your business adopt a paperless or paper-lite approach please contact us today.
Posted On: November 11, 2021