Businesses are taking the initiative when it comes to environmental sustainability by switching from the traditional office space to eco offices. As part of your contribution to green efforts, it is essential to find ways of reducing the paper consumption in your workplace – here’s why:

Why you should be cautious about paper usage

Papers is cheap and readily available in all colours, shapes and sizes, making it seem effortless to produce. However, this is not true. The production of paper begins with cutting down a tree. From there, a tremendous amount of energy and large volumes of water and chemicals are poured into the process of turning the tree fibres into paper. The production process alone has a significant environmental footprint.

On average, a tonne of paper requires 17 mature trees, 4,000 kWh of electricity, 7,000 gallons of water and 350 gallons of oil to produce.

Each year, the world produces about 300 million tonnes of paper, which mostly ends up in copiers, notebooks and computer printouts used in schools and offices. The average office worker in the UK uses about 10,000 sheets of paper annually and a 2017 study revealed that the use of paper has actually gone up over the last two decades, despite the increasing use of paperless technology.

How to minimise paper usage in the workplace

Many business operations still depend on paper. The best way to reduce paper usage is to cut down on wastage by identifying areas in which you could do without paper. Here are four practices you can implement in your workplace:

1. Reuse waste paper

Waste paper, like ink-damaged printouts, can be re-used to absorb and clean spills instead of tissues. It can also be used as printing test paper.

2. Avoid unnecessary printouts

Don’t print out emails unless it’s strictly necessary. If emails must be printed, condense the text so you’re using less paper.

3. Always recycle

Recycling paper uses a tiny fraction of the resources and energy which go into producing the original paper. Paper recycling may not directly reduce paper usage in your office, but engaging workers in the recycling process may encourage them to be more conservative with their paper usage.

To recap

Reducing paper usage in your office is a rewarding way to get your business involved in environmental sustainability. You also benefit from the reduced cost of using less paper – the savings may not be much on a daily basis, but they add up in the long run. Feel free to contact us for more information about the ways in which you can turn your workplace into an eco office and inquire about any office supply needs you might have.