How Businesses Can Reduce Paper Usage

Among the most important goals for the managed print services Las Vegas offices have available to them is cost reduction both in the short- and long-term. Often, a big part of reducing costs and achieving a green office is using less paper. It’s not so much that the cost-per-page is so high but rather that the average office employee can use 10,000 sheets or more each year, and each sheet adds up to a substantial amount.

Printing on Both Sides

While printing on both sides isn’t practical when preparing documents for clients or as references that will be used long-term, in many cases it is. If you figure that half of the paper each employee prints is for temporary use, then based on averages, printing on both sides reduces usage by 2,500 sheets per person. Most modern printers have this feature built in so it doesn’t have to be done manually, and if yours doesn’t, another benefit of MPS is the ease in which you can upgrade to a newer model.

Implement Access Control

Modern printing solutions support multiple users who each have a unique ID and can belong to departments and other groups that have their own IDs as well. Over time, you’ll be able identify individuals and departments consuming more paper than the average for your business and what’s expected of them. Then, you can target those specific inefficiencies rather than put sweeping controls into place.

Provide Your Employees with Other Resources

If you provide email accounts, Internet access, laptops, tablets, smartphones, USB flash drives and so forth to your employees, avoid being overly selective. Just because an employee is relatively new or isn’t a department head doesn’t mean that he or she can’t be more efficient with access to these tools.

Optimize Your Mailing Lists

Mailing lists are an oft-overlooked source of paper usage inefficiency. Many businesses mail duplicates and send information to ex-clients, lapsed customers, past vendors, and so forth. By aggressively paring down your mailing list databases each quarter or at least biannually, you can significantly reduce paper usage on people and organizations who shouldn’t be receiving the information and don’t want it.