Paperless living

Why companies should consider going paperless–and how to do it right!

Companies around the world are looking for easy, effective ways to promote sustainability and reduce their carbon footprint. In our experience, nothing has made more of an impact than going paperless––here’s how and why we did it.

The same conversation comes up every quarter; how do we save in areas we’re excessively spending? And what’s the true impact of the business on the world around us?

According to the environmental advocacy group The World Counts, global production of paper and cardboard amounted to 420,000,000 tons in 2021. This corresponds to the world’s population of 7.9 billion people using two pieces of paper every hour. As well as this, The World Counts also reported a number of horrifying statistics that anyone using paper might not have considered:

• Producing 1kg of paper requires 2-3 times its weight in trees. If everyone used 200 kgs of paper per year there would be no trees left.
• It takes 10 litres of water to produce a single A4 sheet of paper.
• The pulp and paper industry is the single largest industrial consumer of water in Western countries.
• 55% of the global paper supply comes from newly-cut trees.

Environmental, social and governance issues have become a growing concern for employees, employers and the C-Suite, not only for ethical and regulatory compliance reasons but because of increasing demands from customers and potential customers. We know this firsthand, as Managing Partner Stuart sits on the board for Hometree, a tree planting and forest regenerating charity based in Ireland. Reading the above statistics, Fitzgerald Power knew we had no other option––and we grew pleasantly surprised to come to know of the myriad of benefits going paperless could give us. According to this Unilever study, one-third of all global consumers will choose sustainable brands that they believe are contributing to social and environmental good. Similarly, The Global Sustainability Study 2021 conducted by strategy and pricing consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners reveals significant global paradigm shifts in how consumers view sustainability, like that younger consumers are more actively taking steps towards being more sustainable and that across industries and countries, sustainability is a significant purchasing criteria. And the benefits spread widely from there – financially, logistically and environmentally.

1. Environmental benefits

The biggest advantage of having a paperless office, naturally, is that it caters to the Earth, reduces waste and allows us to contribute to the saving of the environment. As we have a close relationship with Hometree, this was of utmost importance. Producing one tonne of printing paper costs the earth 24 trees, and less paper means fewer trees being cut down. Paper manufacturing also hugely contributes to environmental pollution by producing sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide, which oftentimes result in acid rain, greenhouse gasses and water pollution. According to The World Counts, Approximately 26% of waste dumped in landfill sites is discarded paper and paperboard. In addition, when paper rots, it creates methane gas, which is 25 times as toxic as carbon dioxide. Introducing systems like apps and document scanning as well as making the office paperless can make the business more eco-friendly while also saving a lot of money.

2. Physical benefits

Going digital frees up your office space, the parts normally used to store paper, printers, filing cabinets and cupboards, and makes the space available for a better office plan, or to accommodate more employees. This can also help reduce the expenses involved with renting or buying office space. Less paperwork also means that locating certain documents becomes easier. Compared to the filing system used for paperwork, digital files can be stored in a way that can be simple to navigate, and more accessible to all employees. Confidential information can be stored in separate folders, and access to these can be restricted on a need-to-know basis.

3. Financial benefits

If your business is international, going paperless can be a huge advantage. This means that documents and files can be sent to branches or clients in other regions without having to pay huge sums for mailing, or having to wait for the documents to reach. Sending documents by e-mail, apps or even over the phone is quick and free. Paper also takes up costly real estate. A nine-square-foot filing cabinet can hold approximately 10,000 documents — the same amount that a typical office worker uses every year. Paper use also grows by about 22% each year for an average business, so a company’s paper usage doubles within four years.

Going paperless tip: Nominate an environmental or paperless champion in the office to create momentum and keep the team committed. This person can document progress and add their own passion to the paperless cause.

4. Internal Paperless vs External Paperless

As a business, we receive lots of external paper use from supplier invoices to client’s information, but we’ve undertaken the task of notifying all of our suppliers that our invoices need to be paperless and have worked with our clients and their suppliers to move them to a paperless world or enable us to access their information without the use of paper. This again can be daunting at times but agreeing on dates with suppliers and planning potential moves is essential, with all the will in the world it won’t happen as quickly as we would all like but we’re getting there. Use document scanners to generate PDFs for any paper invoices that come in if necessary, but ultimately the source must change and be made aware of the company policy change.

Here’s Michael, our Head of Operations, to inform you of the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

1. No paper = a streamlined office

A number of reasons from cost to storage to plain old it’s 2022 committed us to a paperless work environment, but the main driver is that a paperless office takes out a lot of inefficiencies in the business, from simple things as ‘I need to find a client folder’ to what year it is, to even where is it stored. A paperless environment also enables us to work on a client’s business far easier and quicker. We don’t run the risk of potentially losing information through mistakes or through accidents, as everything is backed up. From a cost point of view, we will see savings in printers (as we grow no need to purchase more), printer costs from toners through to paper to the shredding of confidential information.

2. Brainstorm ideas with staff

Legacy processes and a sense of ‘that’s how we’ve always done it’ may be the initial reaction to change, but as long as the company policy is to go paperless and stakeholders are informed and shown how it will happen, the process to get there shouldn’t be as difficult as people believe; it may be a volume issue rather than a technological issue. There are numerous software solutions out there to enable a transition to paperless, in our own environment the use of Adobe Pro has made a lot of the transition seamless. Speak to your staff, lots of them have grown up in a digital age and may be far more knowledgeable in how to proceed along the paperless journey and in finding solutions. If they do come forward with ideas that work, reward them and acknowledge that achievement.

3. Think logistically

Within the Fitzgerald Power environment, it became obvious that we required two screens per employee to enable the journey to a paperless world, but also to make life for our employees far easier. We currently can’t imagine ever going back to a one-screen world, make the investment and it will pay for itself within no time.

By introducing paperless document management into your workflow, your business stands to save money on multiple fronts. It will become far more efficient as you streamline and accelerate critical business processes and, let’s face it, digital documents are far easier to manage and far more secure than their paper counterparts. Customers, business partners and employees alike will appreciate the pivot to digital all the more, because it makes it easier to do business with you and because you are doing your part to help the planet. And that’s what it’s really all about, right?

We at Fitzgerald Power have spent thirty years offering creative solutions to a diverse range of clients across Ireland, and the UK, and we’re pretty proud of what we’ve helped our clients to achieve. We enable and empower businesses to reach any and every goal. Whatever the job, we don’t offer anything less than the best. We work across a range of sectors, including pharmacy, food & beverage, SME and retail. Please get in touch today if you would like to speak to any of our experts.

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