Posted on Mon, Aug 09, 2010
One ream of paper equals five pounds. The average world office employee uses around 7 reams of copy paper each year. This fact has set the world’s average paper consumption at 123 pounds of paper per person each year.
This average is causing one billion trees to be cut down each year to satisfy the world’s paper demand. Global Warming Initiatives is only expecting this number to grow in future years causing more harm to the environment.
Besides the aesthetically pleasing benefit of trees, they impact the Earth in some major ways:
- Trees remove 100 to 120 billion tons of carbon each year from man-made sources like (cars, trains, planes, etc)
- Trees moderate climate, improve air quality, conserve water and also harbor wildlife
- Trees cut down energy costs- air conditioning and heating costs are lower in shaded areas. The less energy used by consumers the less CO2 emissions in the atmosphere
When people think of a paperless office, they usually focus on how to store documents in a digital form. This is important, but it misses the real point of going paperless. The real benefit comes from creating documents in way that they are digital for the entire lifetime. Once a document gets printed out, you’ve broken the paperless life cycle.
A business can save massive amounts of paper through electronic documentation. Energy savings are just as important and can be found by minimizing the use of print and copy machines. Supporting the green movement helps the environment and shows clients that your business cares about affecting it in a positive way.
Everyone can do something... just be mindful every time you use paper products.
Click On The Tweet and Like Buttons on the "Go Digital Campaign" Page - To Help Alert Businesses "NOW" To Support the Go Digital Campaign!
-or-
YOU Can Make A Big Difference! Right NOW !! Click HERE
Posted on Wed, Jul 28, 2010
The amount of paper used today is staggering. A typical document is copied 19 times, a typical office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper each year, and a typical office discards 350 pounds of paper per employee each year, according to Ecopreneurist.com. Seven out of ten consumers receive paper bank statements. If every household stopped receiving paper bills and statements, 687,000 tons of paper would be saved every year—enough to circle the earth 239 times. The National Archives and Records Administration estimates that a cubic foot of records costs $23.24, virtually all of which is the rental cost of the office space.
In this age of Internet and mobile transactions, it’s hard to imagine some industries such as banks operating without paper. Whether a customer completes a paper application at a bank branch or prints the application off a bank’s website, most employees and customers still assume all transactions end with a stack of paperwork and a “wet” signature on the bottom line. There is technology that can reduce everyday paper use, while reducing costs.
For utility companies, hospitals & banks there is a heavy price tag to this paper addiction. A typical statement has an all-in cost of approximately $1.20, according to industry estimates, and multiplying that by millions of customers adds up very quickly. Industry experts state that the banking industry alone spends $70 billion to $80 billion per year on printing and mailing statements. This number does not include other paper correspondence, or any other costs associated with paper.
These are astounding numbers. But getting consumers to turn off the paper is not an easy task. Most consumers, even green-leaning ones, need an incentive beyond the environmental benefits to make the switch to digital. The solution is to create an enterprise-wide digital environment that is superior to a paper-based environment—one that customers want to join because it makes their lives easier. In an era of heightened environmental awareness, green initiatives resonate strongly with the public and can strengthen a businesses brand. There’s growing evidence that such green efforts boost the bottom line and can help companies outperform their competitors.
Posted on Fri, Jul 23, 2010
Does it seem like the cost of a postage stamp just went up? That’s because it did: Last year, the Postal Service last increased the price of a first-class stamp to 44 cents, up from 42 cents in 2009. Yesterday the Postal Service met to discuss a new rate increase and they have agreed that it’s time to increase rates once again. Technically, the law prohibits a price increase that’s greater than the rate of inflation, which for the last year has been 0.9 percent. But under “unusual circumstances,” the Postal Service can sidestep the law and increase postage rates by more, which is what they plan on doing.
Why is the post office increasing rates greater than the rate of inflation? “The Postal Service faces a serious risk of financial insolvency,” postal vice president Stephen M. Kearney said. The post office lost $3.8 billion last year, despite cutting 40,000 full-time positions and making other reductions, and Kearney said it is facing a $7 billion loss for this year and the same for fiscal 2011, which begins in October. The rate increase would bring in $2.5 billion, meaning there still would be a large loss for next year.
How Much and When Rates Will Increase
5% Increase. A first-class stamp will go up 2 cent from 44 to 46 cents. While your average letter will be going up a few cents, everything else is increasing as well. Priority mail, express mail, addtional first class postage, media mail, and so on. Across the board, most services will see about a 5% increase. One noticeable increase comes to the mailing of periodicals. Those mailings are slated to see a whopping 8% increase. The new rates still need to be approved, but with almost certainty they will be, and then the new rates will take effect on January 2, 2011.
How This Will Affect You
It effects you whether print or email! You don’t send letters and use email instead, you pay all of your bills online, and the increase won’t really matter to you. It’s true that an extra two cents for a stamp isn’t going to break the bank for most people who only mail a handful of items a year, but these postage increases don’t stop there and even if you don’t mail anything these days you may still feel the pinch.
Think about the companies that rely on the postal service to ship their products and communications to consumers. What does a 5% increase in postage mean to a company that already spends tens of millions of dollars a year on postage?
Just one example - Netflix. Their core business model resolves around sending you movies in the mail. In fact, media mail, which Netflix mailings fall under, is slated to get a 7% increase. This would end up costing Netflix upwards of $50 million more on shipping costs in 2011. That’s on top of the already hundreds of millions being spent on shipping.
- What About Less Service?
Five-day delivery. Despite lower mail volumes and reduced revenues, the USPS network must support an additional one to two million new addresses each year. In order to maintain universal mail delivery, the USPS would like to eliminate in-home delivery on Saturday (the lowest volume day). Such a move would require Congressional action.
How To Protect Your Company & Budget?
Digital signatures can help reduce 50% of your paper based, mailed contracts, forms and business communications. These signature required documents will move faster both internally and externally to speed the velocity of business!
Posted on Thu, Jul 15, 2010
The green businesses movement has certainly taken hold over the last decade. Until recently taking an operation wholly or partially paperless has met with varying degrees of success. many high By going paperless a business at least in part can join the going green effort and reduce costs.
A business can save massive amounts of paper through electronic documentation. Energy savings are just as important and can be found by minimizing the use of print and copy machines. Supporting the green movement helps the environment and shows clients that your business cares about affecting it in a positive way.
Traditionally businesses have spent countless dollars time and space maintaining paper business records. Recently more and more business owners have cut costs and improved their operational efficiency by going paperless. If this is something you've considered you may want to look into ways to incorporate digital signature technology to further reduce paper waste.
By using esignature software or digital signatures you can now know that the documents you electronically sign are trustworthy and are an authenticated paperless transaction. Digital signatures are inserted into the document and easily travel electronically to their destination assuring the sender the signee data integrity and overall trust. Digital signature solutions can be seamlessly integrated with any business application without needing to change the existing workflow.
Benefits
* Signer Authenticity
* Reduced Processing Time
* Reduced Operational Costs
* Security and Confidentiality for Documents and Data
* Enhanced Process Efficiency and Optimization
* Speedy Decision-making and Approval Process
* Non-repudiation and Integrity
Digital signature software can now meet the demands of large transaction-driven businesses that currently rely on manual or semi-automated financial and operational signing processes. Whether the signing processes are performed on a daily weekly monthly or yearly basis digital signatures can now be trusted.
Until now standard e-signature solutions have focused on low risk transactions and low volume applications. The next-generation solution delivers significant value to companies by allowing business critical applications involving important legal and financial transactions to be digitally signed as part of a fully automated electronic process.