The Future of Documents

… but Xerox is doing a pretty good job. This Greenbiz article confirms that Xerox does more than “preaching” about sustainability, but also makes significant savings through internal “green” initiatives.

More than 50 projects were presented for internal Earth Day awards, which helped Xerox eliminate 1.3 million pounds of waste and reduce energy use by 500,000 kilowatt hours – this while saving $7.3 million.

Whether finding creative ways of recycling packaging, replacing refrigeration systems, or adhering to the Forest Stewardship Conucil Chain of Custody, these innovations and knowledge are then shared across the corporation – and with customers.

After discovering the great news that Xerox was now considered the top “green” outsourcer (all domains included), I wanted to figure out how we were doing on our legacy market: electronics.

The latest Greenpeace “Guide to Greener Electronics“, published yesterday, nails down companies like HP,  Dell and Lenovo, but Xerox does not appear.  HP dropped significantly in this quarterly report, from being “middle of the pack” one year ago, to being 14th out of 17th (although for all of its electronics divisions). Unfortunately, this ranking seems to be mostly about PCs, not so much about printers or other electronics, so Xerox does not appear.

However, searching for more information on the topic, I stumbled upon GoodElectronics.org, a very good resource on the topic. This then pointed me to Covalence’s Ethical ranking.

Geneva-based Covalence tracks the ethical reputation of multinationals by sourcing information from the media, civil society, and companies. The most active criteria in 2008 have been: Environmental impact of production, Social sponsorship, Waste management, Information to consumer, Eco-innovative product, International presence, Downsizing, Product environmental risk, Labour standards, and Anti-corruption policy – so Sustainability weights strongly in the final ranking.

Great news: Xerox made it to the 5th position in this year’s ranking, second only to Intel in the “Technology” sector. The full table of results can be found here.

Interesting love and hate relationship between the U.S./state governments and paper, as reported in a few articles on Greenbiz.

On the one hand, a study of the U.S. government shows that $440 million out of the $1.3 billion, is “wasteful” or transient paper usage.

The “2009 Government Printing Report” is full of very interesting numbers and facts. For example:

•  it is estimated that a Federal Employee discards 35% of printed pages the very same day, which ends up being 2,520 pages per year – or 6.6 billion pages each year.
• 54% of the employees or not aware of the cost involved in printing.
• the main rationales for printing documents are signatures (57% of respondents), need to review / share (51%), preference towards editing on hardcopies (41%) .

More surprising facts include that 38% of respondents still use paper to file / archive, but also that Gen Y workers have almost the same behaviour towards printing paper than older generations (print and discard almost the same).Anyway, lots of interesting facts that are worth reading through.

On the other hand though, the state of Washington is leading the way towards sustainable and responsible printing by edicting a very aggressive green printing law. By using only recycled paper, enforcing double-sided printing, and launching paper conservation programs, the state wants to achieve a reduction of 30% in printing by next year, but also saving $1 million to state taxpayers, and saving around 43,000 trees and 15.7 million waters.

One thing we should note is that this “over-waste” of paper is not specific to government agencies. Many large and medium companies still do not know how much they spend on printing, and the figures are often the same order of magnitude or even above those listed above. And, it is not only about paper – it is also about carbon footprint and energy consumption of your print infrastructure, about toner usage and waste generated by the devices, and about lost efficiencies due to paper travel – all of which you can read more in the Less Paper Office White Paper.

 In any event, whether a government agency or in the private sector, you should investigate Smarter Ways to Green if you are serious about reducing your impact on the environment – while lowering cost. Click on the image below to learn more.

As we have seen in many of my previous posts, color can really help augment your document. The “Less Paper Office” is not only about printing less, it’s also about printing better to make your documents more powerful – and here comes a great new way to do so.

I don’t usually blog much about Xerox machines, but the new ColorQube 9200 is a real breakthrough. It brings together Xerox’s well proven solid ink technology with very advanced Multifunction device technology, including very high-speed network connectivity, speeds up to 85 pages per minute, and a configurable / programmable User Interface (Extensible Interface Platform) that lets you scan documents directly into your business process applications. You can read more on the technology innovations such as illuminated paper path, long-life repaceable cleaning unit, and others, or even see a virtual demo here.

This new Multi-Function Device is green, too. Beyond Energy Star compliance, it also benefits from the solid ink technology benefits – smaller carbon footprint, reduced waste, and local recycling - leading to up to 90% reduction in waste.

If all this was not enough, the new ColorQube 9200 introduces a new – and cheaper! – way of printing in color. This new flexible pricing plan, based on a 3-tier model, makes you pay a price which much closely matches the actual color ink you use. In particular, this plan allows you to print much more powerful documents (Black plus Useful Color, i.e. highlight color on word documents) at the black-only rate! 

To make it even more convincing, you can even use the associated Cost Savings Calculator to simulate how much you could be saving with this new offering!