Seven Tips to Create a More Eco-Friendly Office
Recycling newspapers, bringing reuseable bags to the grocery store and turning the furnace up or down a few degrees are just a few of the steps that eco-conscious consumers are taking to live a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. Here are seven simple steps to bring that “green” spirit into your office:
- Cut paper use. Print on both sides of the page – what we call “duplexing.” Print multiple images per page and print only the quantity you need at the time you need it. Saving paper also saves energy: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that it takes 10 times more energy to manufacture a piece of paper than to create a print or copy.
- Reach for the right paper, and recycle the paper you use. Use environmentally preferable paper – like Xerox’s High Yield Business Paper that is produced using half of the number of trees of conventional paper. Print on paper certified to sustainable forestry standards from global organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, or use paper with recycled content. Place bins in several office locations to make it easy to collect paper for recycling or for reuse as notepaper.
- Reach for the ENERGY STAR®. Upgrade old products with new, more-efficient systems, and the savings add up. For example, the Xerox WorkCentre® 5645 uses 14 kWh per week of electricity, about 30% less than a comparable multifunction system of three years ago.
- Replace copiers or printers with products that do it all. An office copier, four laser printers and a fax machine can consume 1,110 kWh of energy each year. But if one multifunction system can handle your document needs, it uses only 600 kWh annually. Xerox’s Sustainability Calculator can help pinpoint opportunities to reduce the overall environmental footprint of your office equipment. Visit www.xerox.com/environment to learn more.
- Don't throw away empty toner cartridges. Xerox provides customers with prepaid postage to return cartridges for reuse and recycling. Remanufactured cartridges are built and tested to the same performance specifications as new-build products. Or, consider using Xerox solid ink printers, which eliminate cartridges altogether and generate about 90% less waste during use than a comparable color laser printer.
- Seek office equipment designed for remanufacturing or recycling. Xerox devices are designed with recycling and reuse in mind. Xerox’s recycling and remanufacturing programs have diverted more than 2 billion pounds of waste from landfills since 1991.
- Use software to simplify the way you use documents. Cut back the time and energy spent on manual paper-based processes with workflow management systems and collaboration tools. For paper-intensive processes like legal discovery or mortgage loan document management, Xerox DocuShare®, combined with scan-enabled multifunction devices, can help reduce errors and improve version control – and ultimately eliminate the costs of producing, storing and shipping paper documents.