Sustainability: business, life, environment

Businesses and individuals across the country are looking for ways to cut costs during these challenging economic times.  With small business resources strained most look to cut the most visible expenses: travel, operating expenses, and so forth.  
 
One path to cost reduction is looking at the underlying, seemingly unconscious processes and habits that we do daily.  Companies interested in reducing cost and building business sustainability are taking the challenge to reduce their use of paper. 
 
In our sustainability consulting, we encourage clients to identify all the activities in their business that utilize paper.  The obvious comes to mind like printers, copiers, mail, collateral, but dig deep here and explore other areas of your business. 

• How much paper do you use for events, trade shows, invoicing, literature, packaging, shipping materials?
• What about the kitchen areas and bathrooms?  Remember, it's not just paper but paper products. 
• Consult with people in other departments and get a clear picture of the paper they are using, where it is coming from, when they are using it, and how they are using it.
• You might want to talk to your purchasing department and learn more about how much you are spending on your paper products.

 
As a next step, employ the sustainability concept of the 3 R's: reduce, reuse, recycle. 

• Reduce your paper consumption by working with your purchasing department to reduce the amount of paper purchased and switch to buying  recycled paper (100% post consumable is best). 
• Reuse paper by placing bins next to the copiers and printers for easy reuse of single sided scraped paper. 
• Recycle paper that has been used.

 
Simultaneous with these efforts, in our sustainability consulting, we suggest the use of online document management systems for your documents.  Content Management Systems like the ones offered by WayPoint Technologies give you more than the environmental benefits of going paperless.  They offer the ability to manage different types of data: emails, contracts, logos, reports, forms, drawings, web pages, blogs, etc.  Their web based solutions enables satellite offices and remote employees to go paperless as well. 
 
To win in taking the Paperless Challenge, it's important to articulate and communicate the vision, and the "how's" and "why's" of your plan.  Communicate and train your staff regularly to monitor the success of the program.