by Brianna Crandall — September 6, 2010—Efforts to make printing policies more efficient are happening slowly at best in the U.K., wasting large amounts of resources and obstructing IT managers’ attempts at restraint in energy and paper use, according to a survey conducted by research firm Loudhouse on behalf of Kyocera and carried out with 1,000 U.K. office workers.
Rethinking Printing found that the paper use of the average employee is 10,000 sheets of paper per year, and as many as 6,800 of those sheets are thrown away or recycled. On top of unneeded printing, the survey found employees feeling less concerned about the environment and printing more often. Only 68 percent of respondents said they were personally concerned about the environment in this year’s survey, down from a high of 77 percent in 2008.
Apart from a drop in environmental concern, 70 percent of IT managers surveyed said their companies could do a better job encouraging workers to print smarter, largely through employee education about the cost benefits of more efficient printing. They recognized that communicating with employees about environmental initiatives could make a real difference.
Nevertheless, IT managers see progress happening in encouraging greener printing policies, with 40 percent saying they are getting more executive support in putting green printing on the IT agenda, incorporating environmental policies into the network, and encouraging workers to print less.
According to the survey, a number of green printing policies are becoming more common in corporate offices. In-office recycling is commonplace, with 78 percent of companies encouraging paper recycling including the ubiquitous e-mail footers urging employees to “Consider the environment before printing this message” that have made their way into 55 percent of the companies surveyed.
Loose policies governing duplex and color versus black-and-white are the most common printing policies embraced by companies. Only 22 percent of firms have implemented password- or card-controlled printing, which allow IT or office managers to track paper and printer use on an individual basis.
