How Can Document Scanning Benefit The Environment?

We are all now painfully aware that our planet is existing on a knife edge. Climate change is a disaster waiting to happen and so each and every one of us is under pressure to make changes that can help to prevent causing further damage to the Earth and to bring it back from the brink.

This pressure is being felt most by businesses who know that they all need to play their part in reducing their carbon footprint, but how do they do it?

Whilst there are some businesses who are obvious big polluters, there are many who feel that their impact on the environment is only a small one and find it difficult to know what they need to do in order to help. Sometimes, the best method is through making small changes to the processes of a business.

If every business does the same, then the impact can be massive. In this article, we take a look at how something as simple as document scanning can make its own impact on the future of our planet.

How paper is used

It is easy to think that many of the things that we do have little impact on the environment, but this is simply not the case. Did you know that as much as 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases are the result of paper products? Cutting down on the use of paper in our businesses could therefore have a significant and measurable impact on the environment.

Most of us are now aware of the importance of trees when it comes to the environment, but we keep cutting them down in order to keep up with our consumption of paper. This is thrown into sharp focus when you consider that a single tree makes just 12,500 sheets of paper, but the average office worker uses around 10,000 sheets a year.

Much of our paper use is unnecessary, especially when you consider that on average, we copy or print each document about 19 times, but 45% of those copies will find their way to the bin within 24 hours. That is why more businesses are turning to document scanning as a solution. Every document that pertains to the business is stored digitally, meaning there is no need to reproduce it through printing or copying. This can impact on the environment in a number of different ways.

Reducing energy use

The process of making people is actually responsible for a huge amount of energy use. From cutting down the trees to transporting them, turning them into paper products, recycling paper, printing on paper and handling paper waste, there is a huge amount of energy being consumed, and this means burning fossil fuels.

This grows even further when you consider the energy used in your office alone when it comes to the printing, copying, mailing, and storing of documents.

By scanning a document, you can then view it, share it and send it electronically, meaning there is no paper involved in the process, and this massive amount of energy used in paper production can be cut down.

Toxin exposure

When you think about paper use, you might not think about toxins – after all, paper is clean, unblemished on from a natural source. That much is true right up until the moment that you print anything onto it. The ink and toner that is used in printers and copiers is toxic, and so you are exposing your office to harmful substances all of the time when you print or photocopy something.

Less deforestation

Despite the fact that we understand the importance of trees in the fight against global warming, we still insist on cutting them down to make paper.

As paper is recyclable and trees can be replanted, the system is seen as sustainable, but when you are waiting for years for a new tree to reach maturity, this seems like an uphill struggle, especially when you consider that it takes around 768 million trees to accommodate the paper needs of the world.

By switching to a paperless office through document scanning, you can help to save vast numbers of trees that our planet desperately needs.

Cutting down waste

When we print documents, we are inevitably creating waste as most of them will end up being thrown away at some point. By making the move to document scanning ,you can cut down on the amount of waste that your office produces, as well as all of the energy required to deal with that.

Business benefits

Whilst there are many great environmental reasons to switch to document scanning, there are a number of practical ones too. Not only will it give you the ability to shout about your green credentials and boost the image of your business, but it can also help to reduce your cost base.

When you are no longer buying in constant reams of paper and printer ink, you will soon notice how little you now seem to be spending. Couple this with the reduced costs of dealing with waste and recycling and your profits should get a healthy bump.

Document scanning can also play a large part in helping to keep your documents secure and your business GDPR compliant. With every document saved on a drive or cloud that will have various layers of protection, you can do much more to prevent any documents or sensitive information falling into the wrong hands or being seen by someone that it shouldn’t be because it was left on a desk or thrown into a bin.

It also helps to prevent documents from going missing, with organised files and a search facility, it can take just seconds to find the document that you want, and avoids it being placed in the wrong filing cabinet, shredded by mistake or being left on the bus.

By introducing document scanning to your business, you can quickly and easily reduce your carbon footprint whilst also improving and streamlining your own practices to make your business more secure and efficient.