There is a little over one and half months now until one of the biggest events of the year. No we aren’t talking about the London 2012 Olympics, rather the introduction of Australia’s Carbon Tax. Political debates aside, the introduction of the tax is a world first for reducing a nation’s carbon footprint and the impact us Aussie’s are having on the environment.

The impending introduction however has also brought carbon outputs to the front of mind for many businesses, with many now looking at ways to reduce their own footprint. These businesses aren’t just restricted to those affected by the tax, many SME’s and businesses with relatively small outputs are all looking at ways they too can do their bit for the environment.

One area which businesses can look towards to reduce its carbon footprint is printing. While many often think big scale when looking to ‘go green’ simple measures such as reducing printing consumption can have an impact on carbon outputs, and is very cost effective.

Studies show that each piece of A4 paper accounts for 8.4 grams of carbon per sheet, therefore if a company is printing 1000 pieces of paper per day, they are effectively emitting 8.4 kilograms of carbon – and this is just from the paper alone, not including the energy requirement to run old, archaic devices. Improving simple back office functions such as document management and overall printing practices, organisations can reduce carbon emissions by an average of 32 per cent.

Thinking about how you too can reduce your carbon footprint through printing? Below are a few quick tips on reducing carbon output:

• Prevention is better than a cure – Reducing overall use of paper, toner, equipment and energy is the most powerful environmental and financial strategy you can choose – far more effective than recycling. Much in the way preventing an injury is a far better option than any treatment. Keep that in mind next time you print off an unnecessary document.
• Double-up – Duplexing (printing on both sides of the page) and multi-up (printing more than one page per sheet) are standard features on most modern print devices. Few businesses however take advantage of these features. Businesses can literally half their printing output, and thus their carbon output from printing, by making these functions default settings.
• Solutions are the solution – Upstream has a number of solutions available to clients which can help reduce carbon outputs. While all Upstream solutions are successful in helping reduce printing output, the utrack solution allows you to track paper usage and carbon outputs resulting from printing. This information is shown in simple to understand terms, such as the equivalent number of trees used to power the printing and the equivalent amount of energy usage from a 50 watt light bulb in minutes. This can also be traced back to individual employees and departments.

To find out more information about how to reduce your printing carbon output, visit the Upstream Advantage Index.