Saving the environment and cutting back on waste are excellent goals for your company, but successfully implementing paper conservation policies in the office can be difficult. Here are some tips to help your business reduce its dependency on paper while saving money, from pinpointing sources of excessive paper use to using a managed print service.

Tips for Using Less Paper

1. Evaluate Your Paper Needs

Cutting down on paper across the office might seem like an overwhelming task, but have you taken the time to consider what your business truly needs paper for? For most companies, there’s no real need for paper outside of direct mail marketing. By taking a critical look at where your business uses paper, you’ll be surprised by how unnecessary it really is in most situations. If others at your company are resistant to going paperless, look at it from another angle. Is there room for savings by maximizing efficiency?

2. Get Rid of Labels

When direct mail marketing is absolutely necessary, it’s easy to rely on labels. However, have you thought about how much paper it wastes? A sheet of adhesive labels consists of both the paper the labels are printed on and the paper the labels are affixed to. Rather than use two additional sheets of paper just to make a label, print directly onto an envelope.

3. Use Communal Printers

It’s easy to make a quick printout when you have a printer at your desk. However, if you have to walk across the office to collect your printout and plan your printing tasks around others, you’re more likely to forgo printing and use the digital version of the document instead.

4. Assign Employees Printer Codes

It’s one thing to promote paper efficiency, but it’s another to quantify it. If you have a communal printer, start assigning print codes to employees to track monthly printer usage. You could even turn it into a competition and reward employees who stay below a certain threshold. 

5. Move to a Managed Printing Service

Printing is expensive. You have to account for paper, toner, hardware, and maintenance and upkeep costs. If costs are an issue, consider moving to a managed printing service instead. Even if you don’t limit employee printing at all, taking away the on-demand availability of printing could go a long way to reducing paper usage to only what’s absolutely necessary.

Being mindful about your company’s printing habits can improve your company’s efficiency and lower its budget. If you own a company in the D.C. metropolitan area and you want to reduce waste and save money with a managed printing service, get in touch with Laser Line in Jessup, MD. They also sell and repair printers. Call them at (410) 636-1700 or learn more about their managed print services online.