Remember being told computers would create a paperless office?

I hear complaints that more paper is generated than ever before and the paperless office is a myth.

How did we get into this situation and what can we do about it?

The obvious place to start is at the printer.

Recycling paper whenever possible does assist reducing waste. Train yourself and your staff to stop before printing and ask ‘why am I printing this?’

If you have no valid reason - don’t!

$4.2 billion is spent annually on Australian business postage. Add the cost of paper, ink or toner and much of your profit is being wasted, apart from environmental considerations.

Most large companies have introduced electronic billing, but many small businesses have not yet followed this practice. I’ve seen small business offices printing a copy for the client and a copy for the office. This stems from the old practice of having a carbon copy invoice book, but the analogy is incorrect. If you created the invoice electronically, your carbon copy is on the computer. The problem is that often that they don’t trust the computer and want their own hard copy. Still the expense piles up and affects your bottom line every day.

Information has become a huge business commodity and staff are constantly downloading large documents from the internet. Best practice is to store that document on a network and share it electronically with all staff, rather than end up with many printed copies of the document, especially if it is going to be outdated in a short period of time.

I was stunned yesterday when I attended an online conference and all attendees were instructed to print a 58 page reference document!

There is a terrific widget, free for small business, that tracks paper usage on a network allowing managers to identify where the heaviest printer usage is coming from and begin to combat the issue.