Solutions
The Green Office
If you limit your thinking to the belief that "the green office" is all about buying energy efficient hardware with lower emissions, then you’re in danger of missing out on the significant benefits it can really bring.
A "green office" is one that uses its IT as efficiently and effectively as possible for the benefit of the entire organization. And that’s not limited to energy efficiency.
While there is clearly an environmental benefit in your office peripherals using electricity as frugally as possible, real benefits will only be experienced when you incorporate hardware, software, processes and people in your green office strategy.
Environmentally Green
Climate change is the biggest issue in the world today and, regardless of personal views, it is driving governmental policy that will significantly affect every business. Legislation and regulation are already beginning to result in new challenges that will inevitably heap additional costs onto the bottom line.
Companies that take early steps towards more carbon responsible practices will have a clear competitive advantage; organizations that are ‘seen to be green’ are already seeing the difference this environmentally responsible stance has on their share price.
Better then to be proactive and tackle green issues head on and reap the efficiency and productivity rewards it can so easily bring, rather than wait for legislation, regulation or customer stagnation to force you to change. By then, it could be too late.
Administratively Green
However, you don’t need to wait for any kind of green IT revolution before you can make a difference in your workplace. There are significant cost savings — and productivity opportunities — to be gained from reviewing and optimizing the use of software.
While the overall use of energy- and consumable-hungry office hardware is declining, the energy costs to run them are increasing. Anything, then, that can reduce — or rather, optimize — their use will save energy and costs not only in the office, but across the industries that support their manufacture and supply.
For example, before you even get to press the "print" button, huge expense and energy has already been expended in producing printer toner and paper. Every year it takes 500 billion gallons of oil to manufacture the laser printer cartridges used in North America, and over the same period, 350 million used cartridges are thrown into landfill sites. Some cartridge components take up to 1,000 years to decompose. To supply the estimated 1.5 trillion pages printed in the USA last year, 180 million trees were felled and over 100 billion gallons of water were consumed.
So is printing really the best way to manage the dissemination of information?
Cost is not the only thing driving the move towards a green office. Smartphones, wireless connectivity and cloud computing means more and more of our appetite for information is being quenched by digital displays and electronic files. Video conferencing, electronic book readers and the rise of scanning are also combining to make paper-based information sharing a thing of the past.
Lean and Green
OmniPage, PaperPort and PDF Create from Nuance can help. This is a family of world leading "productivity applications" that vastly improve the way in which paper and digital documents are processed, archived and shared. Their ease of use, wide compatibility and broad functionality mean they can vastly improve an organization’s productivity while delivering significant reductions in costs.
- OmniPage is the world’s most accurate document conversion application. It has 99%+ accuracy so it can turn paper and digital documents into files you can edit, search and share in the format of your choice.
- PaperPort is the world’s most powerful desktop document management system — organize, view and find over 150 document and photo formats
- PDF Converter gives you the ability to create 100%-industry-standard PDF files from any application
All three applications combine to reduce your reliance on paper, automate repetitive manual tasks and give fast, secure access to information. And of course, this in turn leads to reduced information processing costs and labor.
- Digitize and organize your paper records
- Eliminate offsite document storage
- Keep information secure
- Ensure information is Section 508 accessibility certified
- Create PDF files from any document
- Convert PDF files in editable Microsoft Word documents
- Eliminate the retyping of information