Print solutions for an eco friendly business

Running your office in an eco friendly manner can be quite the challenge for a small business owner. Although expensive, investing in green solutions can have massive benefits in the long term, both from an environmental and business standpoint.

Aside from obvious eco friendly strategies, such as implementing recycling and energy efficient lighting systems, there are a number of changes to your printing systems that you can make:

Eco friendly paper

With a plethora of choices available, choosing the right paper can be very difficult. When it comes to making your decision there are three things to keep in mind.

• The percentage of recycled materials in the paper will determine which tasks it is better suited to. The lower the percentage, the thicker the paper tends to be.
• The next choice is if you want chemical free paper or not. Chemical free paper is always thinner than the treated variety.
• The final choice is if you want your paper to be ethically sourced. Ethically sourced products ensure all workers are paid a fair price.

Green printer inks

Printer inks are much easier to source from environmentally friendly sources than paper is. New innovations, such as soy based inks, are a popular choice as they give a bright colour whilst still being sourced from renewable means.

UV inks are also a popular choice. Cured by sunlight instead of chemical processes, these inks also give an extremely high quality finish.

Coupled with refilling your empty ink cartridges, switching to these inks can significantly reduce your company’s negative effect on the environment.

All-in-one peripherals

Running a printer, fax machine, photocopier and scanner can be very energy inefficient. Not only is there an increased energy cost with multiple peripherals, but there is also the more risk of one being left on standby mode by místake.
Replacing your peripherals with an all-in-one unit will help cut your carbon footprint significantly.

Changing to an all-in-one is useless if you install a machine which uses more electricity than all of your past equipment combined. Be sure to check for a energy saving mode and certification confirming that your all-in-one is energy efficient.

With a range of options available to help your company switch to more eco friendly printing solutions, a few small changes to the way your business is run can have a huge impact in the long term.