Green your print function

When you set yourself the objective of ‘greening your print function’, you set a course to optimise your business. So where do you start? The answer lies not only in eco-technology but rationalising your print processes. Gary Downey explains.

24 February 2011

   
1⁄ Take stock
What are you currently producing and why? Before you change equipment you should know why you currently produce the documents you do. Don’t rely on eco-technology in isolation to achieve your goal.

Your first step should always be to carry out an assessment to identify:
- The types of documents being produced per device and why
- Utilisation of each device in place
- Type of consumables used/stored
- Any conspicuous print waste eg uncollected print-outs
- The current cost of printing to enable you to quantify the benefits of any green changes

2⁄ Think sparse
Squeeze your print volumes, reduce your waste. You will quickly identify spikes of printing that your staff produce, which from a cost and environmental impact need to stop. Frequent discoveries include: printing out large reports, often from automated programs which are not used by anyone; volumes of print from browsing lunchtime web users, and bin-loads of email print outs which are read once then binned. Be aware the total volume of many one or two page documents can really add up.

Identify specific documents which should no longer be printed and educate staff of non-print alternatives such as email and file-sharing repositories. Every page saved at this stage will reduce your energy, toner, paper, waste and other costs and their associated environmental impacts.

3⁄ Optimise
Find a balance between optimising the cost-savings and environmental improvements with the practicalities of staff being able to work efficiently. For example, rationalising all your devices down to very few high-performance machines may be attractive in some respects, but may prove impractical in buildings like rabbit warrens.

A thorough physical assessment 
in step 1 will pay dividends here.

Some simple considerations to bear in mind:
- There is always potential to reduce the absolute number of print devices you have, particularly those with low utilisation
- Minimise the number of single function and non-networked devices you have and remove any that cannot be justified
- Older devices are generally less energy-efficient and consume more energy than modern technology designed for purpose
- Equipment using multi-component cartridges typically 
has higher page costs and generates significant supply and waste streams so minimise these
- When procuring new technology consider both their environmental credentials and their ability to be networked, and scan and distribute documents electronically
- Cost-accounting is key to controlling print volumes and costs. Modern print technology can require a user to identify themselves with a proximity card and pin number, for example, before they use it. Every document produced can be attributed to that user, and accurate costs tracked and potentially charged back to departments and clients.

4⁄ Print smart
The key to achieving and maintaining a greener print function is to leverage all the steps you’ve taken with company-wide adoption of best practices in both print and business processes.
By now you should only be printing what your organisation needs, using technology that is networked and delivers multiple functions to users in an environmentally sensitive way.
Your objective is now to reduce the impact of necessary printing by using this infrastructure as efficiently as possible. Simple best practice policies for printing and automating frequent processes 
can really help:

- Reduce page margins so you use less pages
- Adopt a smaller font size as a company for the same reason
- Print multiple pages or slides per page or in booklet formats
- Duplex should be your standard and the default on every device
- Re-use rather than recycle blank and non-confidential pages
- Introducing forced release of print jobs will reduce waste
- Provide staff with simple scanning capabilities on the same devices
- Use your devices to automate digital workflows
- Control and measure access, usage and costs generated by every user of your print infrastructure
- Continually monitor and promote best practice print and document processes.


Green supplies
The sleep, standby and in-use energy consumption information is useful when comparing competing models, but also take into account how the device can be configured the best way for your staff and your processes.
Suppliers can reduce your impact and cost significantly. Look for a partner who:
● Pre-configures equipment ahead of delivery managing the waste themselves
● Provides remote support to the equipment, delivering pro-active service while minimising engineer journeys
● Operates engineers on foot as well as in vehicles
● Incorporates waste management and recycling into their service and logistics operations

Gary Downey is group marketing director at Balreed Digitec