| Simple ideas to create a more environmentally friendly office.
I was recently browsing through some Canon flyers at our office and came across one on things to do for a more environmentally friendly office. The Canon flyer was branded for Canon products, but I think most of these green office tips can apply to a majority of the copiers and printers on the market today. While some lists for a more environmentally friendly office require a lot of time and money to be spent, these are very simple and often save money. I have copied the tips below, but the original flyer can be found here.
Green Office Tips #1: Utilize the energy-saving features of your office products.
Features such as ‘Quick Start’ and ‘Energy Save’ mode on your Canon devices shorten warm-up time and reduce power consumption so you can save time and costs.
Most copiers and printers have “sleep modes” that allow the machine to enter an energy-saving mode when not being used. Often you can set the amount of time the machine stands idle before entering sleep mode to be shorter or longer.
Green Office Tips #2: Paper has two-sides—use them both!
Utilize duplex capabilities and Image Combination modes for printing, and cut your paper and toner usage in half.
Cutting down on paper and toner use is one of the easiest ways to become a more environmentally friendly office. Many copiers allow you to set double-sided printing as the default. Using the blank backs of single-sided prints as scratch paper is another good way to get the most out of a piece of paper.
Green Office Tips #3: Preview documents before printing.
Canon offers multiple ways to preview your documents and print settings—either at the device or from a desktop—to prevent unwanted pages from being printed.
Using Print Preview is a great way to make sure pages look the way you want them before sending them to the printer. Many computer programs have a print preview function built into them. “Scale-to-fit” or “fit-to-page” options are also good because they shrink oversized pages down to fit on one page. Printing two pages on one sheet of paper is another way to reduce the amount of paper used.
Green Office Tips #4: Leverage scanning technology.
You can easily scan and convert paper documents into electronic files for fast, cost-effective communication of information to save paper and time.
Electronic Document Management is one of the biggest environmentally friendly office trends right now. It helps offices become more green by cutting down on paper, toner, and wear and tear on office equipment, helping business leave a smaller carbon footprint.
Although having an environmentally friendly office is hot right now as a buzzword, many companies are finding that “green” practices are financially sound as well. Cutting down on paper and toner use reduces costs for the business, and electronic document management saves employees the time and frustration of having to search for paper files by hand. Either way you look at it, implementing some of these green office tips is good for business. To learn more about how you could benefit from Document Management, contact us today. | 
