The Netherlands is becoming increasingly digital. Books made during long train journeys have made way for E-readers and nowadays you can no longer receive your bank statement by post but via the app. Business life is also working on this digital transition and companies are increasingly trying to work with less paper or even completely paperless. We take you along in some (of many) advantages of working without paper.
Ecological benefits
Paper is made of wood pulp, this is a mixture of wood chips and water. In order to obtain these wood chippings, the earth’s wood resources, also known as trees, must be used.
Apart from the fact that paper production results in the processing of trees, paper in the business segment is mainly used to print things on. CO² is released during the printing process. However, many people do not know exactly how much CO² is released: printing 500 sheets of paper results in a CO² emission of about 7.25 kg. To put this into perspective: 7.25 kg CO² is equivalent to leaving a computer in idle for 27 days, or driving a car for 42 kilometres.
Paper production is therefore like a knife that cuts both ways: on the one hand, paper production causes trees to disappear, so that less CO² can be converted into oxygen, and on the other hand, the paper produced is applied in a way that emits a lot of CO².
However, Corporate Social Responsibility is not the only motive to work paperless. In addition to the ecological advantages mentioned above, it is just as interesting in economic terms to ban paper from your organisation
Economic benefits
Of course, the main objective of organisations is always profit optimisation. Where costs can be saved, the profit can be optimized. This is a perfect match for paperless working, because savings can indeed be achieved if the paper is eliminated from organisations:
- Paper costs
- Printer purchase
- Printer maintenance costs
- Ink costs
- Depreciation of the printer
- Destruction costs
- Print space costs (can be used in a more valuable way.)
All these costs therefore contribute to the average cost of €0.10 per printed sheet. This does not seem much until you take into account the fact that the same sheet in a digital form costs €0,05. In other words, a saving of 50%.
A few years ago, before paperless working was seen as a good alternative and office workers were completely dependent on paper, the average office worker used 10,000 sheets of paper per year, so the switch to paperless working can be very lucrative.
Not to mention the efficiency benefits of paperless operations. The time savings of working digitally alone are reason enough to take a critical look at your information management.
Also convinced to work paperless? Please contact us.