Go Paperless, Go Green, Save Green

Global Warming - Over the last few years, it has become more and more popular to Go Green. There has been increased evidence of global warming and with it, increased awareness of how to help the problem of global warming. A lot of companies have focused their advertising on the environmental benefits their products have, actors have endorsed products that save energy such as low energy light bulbs and hybrid cars, and even the former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, starred in the documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, which exposes the truths of global warming. Global warming is a big issue and a popular issue.

Paper Waste
Evidence suggests that CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming. The development and use of paper products is contributing to the CO2 emissions problem. According to MDF Systems, the average US office worker generates 2 lbs of paper waste per day. A midsized company with 1,000 employees produces 30 million pages of paper per year, which equals the cutting down of 1,369 trees and produces approximately 300,000 pounds of CO2 per year.

The needless use of paper in offices not only uses natural resources by way of cutting down trees (which includes the energy used for tree cutting tools and for manufacturing paper), but also wastes a large amount of energy with paper processing machines. A copier, two printers, and a fax machine consume 1400 kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy each year. Offices are full of these machines. Captaris Corporation claims that an estimated 80 percent of the green house gas emissions in New York City are generated by office buildings.

Paperless Solution
The obvious solution to reducing emissions produced by paper and paper processing machines is to reduce the use of paper in the office. Paperless office software allows offices to securely file and transfer documents without ever printing the document. Either documents can be stored as a PDF file or they can remain in their original format such as Microsoft Word or Excel.

Paperless Benefits
The benefits of going paperless go beyond saving money on paper and energy. They can also save a lot of time, which equates to saving more money. A paperless filing system brings all documents in the system to your fingertips. If you need an invoice for a specific customer, even if it is from ten years ago, you can do a quick search and email the document in minutes or seconds. Paperless office software provides many other features that prove its superiority to a traditional filing system, such as an audit trail to record who has viewed or moved documents, security features to keep documents from being seen by unauthorized eyes, a maturity date feature to easily control how long documents are retained, and many more.

The Best of Both Worlds
Every office can make a positive impact in the fight against the planet's growing problem of global warming and at the same time save time and money using paperless office software.