Paper

Ideas to promote reduced printing

• Change the default settings for all staff to double-sided printing. Make it easy for staff to choose single-sided for when it is deemed necessary, but don’t allow staff to change their own default settings – Norton Rose, Swaab, Maddocks
  
• Changing the ‘quick print’ settings to double-sided
  
• Change the firm style guide to include double-sided printing. You can also reduce font-sizes and margins. Auditing of compliance to the style guide ensures compliance – Maddocks
  
• Rationalising the number and location of printers. Requiring people to walk further to collect printing seems to reduce the volume of printing – DLA Piper 
• Providing larger computer screens, or dual computer screens making it easier to read documents whilst in electronic form – Maddocks and DLA Piper
  
• Provide 2 and 4-up per page - Norton Rose
  
• Firm-wide tracking of quantities printed by each individual. A league table can be published to shame heavy printers (Net Balance) or discussions can be held with heavy consumers (Maddocks)
  
• ‘Follow-me’ delays printing until an individual’s pin or keycard is used to release it, it also means people can collect their printing from any of the networked printers. This reduces the forgotten print and the superseded print. At Maddocks ‘Follow-me’ is offered not mandatory. At Swaabs, follow me was not accepted as there is a short delay at the printer.
  
• ‘Equitrac’ can send small print jobs to a local printer and larger jobs to a MFP where it is prepared (collated, bound, hole-punched) – McCullough Robertson
  
• Sorting trays at printer stations to collect each person’s/team’s printing for collection -Swaabs
  
• Electronic delivery of scanned images to the user – Maddocks
  
• Education and awareness raising campaigns. At Maddocks a ‘Wipe-off 5 campaign’ to get staff reduce printing by 5% resulted in a 10% reduction.
  
• Changing the firm policy to electronic filing/storage of documents as opposed to hard copy. It has been found that electronic storage results in much easier search and retrieval of documents. It also greatly reduces the burden on staff tasked with filing hard-copy documents providing them with additional capacity to provide alternative assistance - Maddock

Hints to promote acceptance of changing to default duplex printing

• Obtain a resolution from executive/management to introduce default duplex printing and direct those who resist to that resolution – Norton Rose
  
• Explain that clients are demanding duplex printing and reduced printing – Norton Rose
  
• Explain the costs savings – Norton Rose
  
• Explain the reduced clutter and storage requirements – Norton Rose
  
• Avoid the environmental arguments and focus on costs savings, etc... – Norton Rose
  
• Describe it is a short-term trial (eg 3 months) and ask people to delay commenting until the end of the trial. At DLA Piper, this has resulted in almost 100% acceptance
  
• Where there is not a management directive to change to default, staff can still be encouraged to use duplex printing through awareness raising and empowering people to use it by providing instructions on how to do it – DLA Piper (London)
  
• Calculate the impact, particularly the costs savings and distribute to all staff – Norton Rose
  
• Telling the traditional lawyers who were unaccustomed to looking on the backs of documents they have been looking at the back-sides of pages in books all their lives –Norton Rose
  
• To those who justify single-sided printing with court procedures, remind them that nearly all Australian jurisdictions now permit filing double-sided documents – AusLSA is commencing a project looking at court procedure to see if we can bring any pressure on jurisdictions where filing double-sided documents is not the norm
  

Impact of introducing default duplex printing

• Duplex printing, as a default, can reduce paper consumption by 30 – 40%. At Norton Rose, this equates to approx $100,000 per annum
  
• The Printer fleet review at DLA Piper resulted in a savings of $72,000 per annum from reduced paper usage (>20,000 reams of paper per year) and 33% reduction in electricity consumption
  

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Issues

• The scope of 'stationery' should include paper based consumables (writing, printing, copying, notepads, folder inserts etc), toner cartridges and ink, writing implements and general office accessories
   
• Stationery suppliers will typically have vast supply chains, and will acquire products from many sources; the challenge for the end consumer is to try as much as possible to ensure that the products we ultimately use are sourced ethically, and provide environmental relief in their manufacture
   
• Stationery supply is a highly competitive market, technologies are converging and environmental performance in manufacture or supply is being seen as a differentiation factor
   
• Our purchases need to consider how the supply is sourced, as well as how to minimise impacts from use and disposal of product 

Considerations

Identify Requirement 

• Consider the specifications of the stationery and consumables used in your office against the criteria stated in the UNEP procurement guidelines (below). These are classified into four criteria, being:
• • paper and paper based consumables;
  • toner, inks and printer cartridges;
  • writing implements

Plan

• Consider how you want to decide on a stationery supplier. The UNEP guidelines provide a checklist with a scoring mechanism, but ultimately, it may be more of a commercial decision for your firm, which may be based on price or relationship, however you should always consider the environmental and ethical sourcing issues before you reach a final decision. 

Select

• Selection of a stationery supplier should be made after you have satisfied their ability conform to the majority of the issues identified by the UNEP procurement guidelines.
   
  
• It will be very difficult to prove to yourself that the supplier does meet this conformity and it is unlikely that you will have the resources to perform independent auditing yourself. In this instance you should seek assurance from the supplier (as a minimum in the form of a self-assessment) in the following areas:
• • that production of the 'product' conforms to international labour standards and where possible this is independently verified;
  • that the supplier has a written corporate environment policy;
  • that the supplier has a environmental management system in place;
  • that the supplier recognises the environmental impact of their freight and has a program in place to mitigate the CO₂ through transportation of products;
  • that the supplier has a return and disposal program (for items such as toner or ink cartridges and perhaps packaging). 

Further Information 

• UNEP  'Sustainable procurement guidelines for office stationery' - Product Sheet

Prepared by Kelvin O'Connor, Henry Davis York

More information

Maddocks: Wipe-Off 5 (Printing Reductions)

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Overview

Programme details

• Provided all staff with a fridge magnet which stated "think before you print!"
  
• Placed A3 laminated posters stating "Wipe off 5" in all print rooms.These had different pictures on each side, which were turned over regularly.
  
• Sent staff an email at the beginning of the programme with the following message:
  

• Tips for reducing printing included "think before you print", using double sided printing (or double-double printing) and getting WP or administrative assistants to send a link to the document when they've finished typing, rather than printing, if you think you might make further amendments.
  

What were the results?

• Maddocks' staff exceeded the initiative's expectations and reduced their paper consumption by 10 pages per day, which represents a saving of 885,896 pages per year for the firm.
• As Maddcks uses recycled paper, it is difficult to calculate the exact benefits of this initiative, but if the firm used non-recycled paper, this saving is equivalent to 117 trees, or 1,770 reams ofpaper.
  

Prepared by
Shirley Hamel
Director of Knowledge and Business Services
Maddocks