The Future of Documents

Interesting article on how Universities are struggling with cost control, especially related to energy drains from their data centers and computing equipments.

Colleges and universities have been slow in adopting energy-saving techniques, due to their decentralization, and lack of cohesive strategies. A survey found out that “higher-education institutions are less likely than businesses, the K-12 sector, and federal government, to adopt a formal policy to encourage energy efficient buying decisions”. Surprisingly enough, “researchers often resist plans for centralization because they want their servers just down the hall” – although this is usually a population which is quite sensitive to environmental concerns.

But energy drain from computing equipment is just part of the story – most of these studies do not take the consumption of printing equipments. In order to get greener while cutting costs, universities should also rationalize their print fleet and document-related costs. Sure, printers represent a small amount of the overall energy consumption, but it’s always worth checking out what can is consumed and can be saved through tools like the Carbon Footprint Calculator.  And, just like the University of Calgary, they should start on a journey to reduce paper consumption. That would help them realize the Less Paper Office vision and save a huge stack of paper (one mile in their case) which amounts to many trees, but even more dollars.

How should universities go about greening up their document processes as well? The methodology detailed in the article applies here as well: start with an Audit of your current spendings in document costs, establish a task force, then consolidate and outsource or consolidate their document processes and equipments.