How to make your business green: Printing

Posted on 2 Sep 2008 at 16:56

So far in our green business feature, we've covered reducing the energy demands of servers and clients. Here, we explore the thorny topic of printers.

When Lexmark carried out a survey of UK offices in 2004, it found that a fifth of all documents printed were lost on desks, left on printers or simply binned within five minutes.

This waste, it estimated, was costing UK businesses a staggering £230 million a year, a figure expected to rise by 20% every year thereafter. But there are a number of easy measures that companies can use to reduce their costs.

The first thing to look out for when buying a new printer is our old friend the Energy Star rating, which guarantees that printers carrying its badge will be around 25% more efficient than those without it.

Energy Star also ensures duplex printing is supported, which simply allows you to print on both sides of paper automatically. The technology has been around for years, but in a recent survey Brother found that 58% of employees in small to medium businesses weren't using it, simply because they were unaware it was a feature of their printers.

To overcome this, IT managers need to switch the print driver to duplex and set it to default, meaning all future jobs automatically print on both sides of the paper. This could save businesses around 30% on their printing costs, according to Brother.

Another important consideration when buying a printer is to understand its purpose: "A printer uses a lot of power and it's worth an IT department considering this," said Steve Baxter, marketing manager for Kyocera Mita.

"For example, if you're buying a printer for an executive, which is hardly going to do any work, its most important power mode is sleep, so look for one that uses very little energy in this mode. If you're buying a department printer that's going to be printing all day, try and find one that has low energy requirements when printing. There are huge power savings to be made there."

Next: Print-management software

Feature index: How to make your business green

Author: Stuart Turton