Environmentally Friendly Printing Practices For Home Office
Lately, responsible business owners have been looking for ways to reduce their environmental footprint. While it’s great to help the environment, green printing business methods are often more cost effective than most people believe.
You don’t have to totally renovate your office building or change your home office printer to experience the benefits of ecologically-friendly business tactics.
Below, we will look at why it may be smart to start reducing your environmental footprint through monitoring your printing practices and how you can start improving print consumption today.
Why go green?
Whether you have a home office or own a larger business, making the most of your resources can be extremely beneficial. This applies across the board and includes how you print.
You may find that practicing environmentally friendly printing tactics not only helps our ecological system, but can save you money, time, and effort both in the long-run and short-term.
Here are a few ways that reducing your environmental printing footprint may actually increase your business’s income.
You’ll Reduce Energy Costs
When you are working to minimize energy consumption, you’ll naturally end up spending less on electricity, gas, waste removal and water. You’ll use less paper, too.
You Might Attract New Customer Base
Many clients and customers prefer to work with businesses that are conscious of their company’s environmental impact. Publically going green with your printing can help you increase sales and maintain your pre-existing profits.
Green Tax Incentives are Available
Certain green practices come with substantial tax breaks. For a list of green practices that come with tax incentives, click here.
You Can Boost Workforce Morale
When employees know that they work for a responsible company who cares about the impact that they have on the world we all live in and its limited resources, they tend to be more likely to trust their company.
This can lead to a better working environment for employees and business owners alike.
You’ll Have a Favorable Social Impact
In a world where information about anything can be shared on social media platforms in the blink of an eye without any notice, businesses should be careful about protecting their reputation.
Green business practices are generally viewed favorably by most people.
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When you choose to go digital instead of using snail mail and printing in certain situations, the word might just spread.
What are some things you can do to effectively reduce your printing impact on the environment?
Now that you know why considering your environmental impact can be beneficial to your business, you’re probably wondering how you can get started.
Surprisingly, statistics show that its the little things that your business does that can start to add up and have a real impact over the course of time.
While big changes can have big impacts, little changes can have equally large impacts if they are practiced constantly by multiple people or over the course of time.
The following printing business practices can be applied to large companies, small businesses, or even to your home office.
Make the Most of Your Printing Resources
While this goes without saying, sometimes it’s tempting to be a bit more wasteful at work than in your daily life.
While when you are at home you may grocery shop conservatively and practice frugality, in a fast-paced workplace environment, it can be hard to conserve resources.
Keeping an eye on how you use what’s available to you is the first step toward seeing real results and financial gains. This means only printing off what you need when you need it.
Print on both sides of a piece of paper and never throw away paper that hasn’t been used or utilized in some way.
Utilize all available paper and ink resources
Try not to waste anything. Seems pretty simple right? However, utilizing your resources can start at the printer and reach every corner of your office.
For example, if you’re having a company party, you choose to reuse decorations or party favors from previous celebrations.
Don’t print banners or large display graphics. Use the same Christmas decorations every year instead of changing your Christmas theme annually.
For home offices, try to go digital. Scan receipts and install applications that let you send everything in a digitized format. There are many free applications that allow you to share information without ever having to print anything.
Minimize power consumption
Printers and computers that are left on at night can hike up your energy bill very quickly. Consider getting plug bars with timer settings that let them shut down and turn back on in specified intervals.
Set your computers to energy savings mode. Over time, this can lead to big savings and a smaller environmental footprint.
Repurpose, reuse, and recycle
Your company should do its best to submit paper waste to the proper recycling facilities whenever possible. While recycling waste may not have the largest impact on the environment, it demonstrates your company’s willingness to do what it can for the Earth.
You may also want to consider recycling within your business. Repurposing printer items and reusing non-disposable materials can make a big difference for your home office or office building.
Utilize Grayscale Printing and Reduce Ink Cartridge Use
If your company tends to use lots of flashy images, colorful graphics, and bright charts, it may be wise to either scale things back at the home office or use grayscale printing.
Ink cartridge recycling can cause energy costs that may not be considered by most people. At home, you may want to choose a logo that looks good in black and white or print invoices in grayscale only.
Consider using a projector instead of printing individual reports for every meeting. Small steps like this can start to add up quickly and help move your business in the right direction.
As a general rule, grayscale printing is cheaper and more efficient than color printing, so keep that in mind.
• Print in black and white
• Create logos and ads that look good in black and white
• Conserve ink
Train Yourself to Practice Conservative Printing
Sometimes, simply reminding staff members to be frugal when they use printers can be very helpful.
It’s important that all employees have been trained from the get-go to be conservative when using any office resources, including printers.
If you have a home office, make sure that everyone in the household knows that the printer is mainly for business use.
• Remind employees to shut off printers at night if possible
• Train staff to only print when necessary
• Reinforce conservative printing whenever possible
Carefully Consider Printer Options
There are many energy efficient printers that can be used in your home office or business building. Considering the long-term cost of your printer is smart.
Before settling on a printer, read up on its consumption ratings, energy efficiency, and overall green design features. Many printers now highlight energy efficiency and utilize green printing methods in their design.
• Choose a printer with energy savings modes
• Consider getting a printer that works better with environmentally friendly concepts
• Look at green printers and consider if they may be worth the money in the long-run
Additional Helpful Links:
• What Staples says about Environmentally Friendly Printing
• Arricle from Greenideal.com
• Eco Friendly Printing for Your Home Office
Final Words
These have been some of the most effective and environmentally conscious printing methods for businesses of all sizes.
We hope these tips have helped you get an idea of how to reduce your printing footprint and why that can save you money.
Did we leave any important information out?
What printing methods does your business practice to help reduce their ecological footprint? We want to hear your feedback, so please let us know!
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