The future of printing is green

With EU requirements for businesses to report on the environmental and social aspects of their operations tightening, as part of wider endeavors to reduce the impact of business on the environment, recent years have seen an increasing focus on environmental issues within managed print services (MPS). Environmental concerns tie in with a focus on the bottom line By Brendan Melck Environmental concerns tie in with concerns about resource management when it comes to printing. MPS involves the use of software to manage and monitor the volume of printing, and to ensure that only authorized employees are able to use printers, thus limiting their usage. This not only reduces printing costs, but also reduces environmental impact. According to major printer manufacturer Xerox, the costs of printing constitute around 15 percent of all business costs, while they estimate the potential cost-cutting from outsourcing printing management at around 30 percent. With printing continuing to be a very important aspect of the operations of businesses and public-sector institutions, in spite of the drive towards the so-called ‘paperless office,’ ensuring that there is an environmental element to printing management within organizations is an important way of reducing their carbon footprint. Lower energy and paper use MPS providers present lower environmental impact among one of the principal benefits of their services. Generally, they will carry out an audit of the current printing practices of an organization, and, on the basis of this, develop a plan to optimize these. This would potentially involve the reduction of the number of printers in an office – immediately helping to reduce electricity use – and their positioning in particular locations, ensuring sufficient access. It could also involve switching to more environmentally-friendly printer types, which ensure lower energy use. Implementing solutions such as pull printing, requiring user authentication before printer use, is an important way to reduce paper wastage – which represents the main environmental impact created by printing. The electricity used by printers, in contrast, represents only a small proportion of this impact. Another simple change which can be implemented to ensure reduced paper use, is the introduction of duplex-only printing (i.e. double-sided printing). MSP providers offer one-stop shop By outsourcing printing to an MPS provider, companies can put the task of ensuring their green credentials are enhanced, while at the same time introducing a change in practices which is most likely to result in some important cost savings. This includes managing the recycling of ink cartridges, using sustainably-sourced paper, and using ink which has a lower environmental impact (e.g. soy ink). According to technology business news source Quocirca, the leading companies in the MSP market are all suppliers of printing equipment offering these services as an add-on to their main businesses. Reportedly, global leaders include Xerox, Ricoh, Lexmark and Canon. Other MSP providers include systems integrators and resellers, which offer MPS as part of a wider offering of managed IT services, and also independent software vendors, which include print management products in their offer. Environment not yet key motivator for MPS introduction As Quocirca’s 2014 report on the competitive landscape for MPS states, the main motivation behind organizations’ decisions to use MPS solutions is to ensure more predictable costs, with reducing the environmental impact only in the eighth position. It can only be expected that as the requirements for reporting on the environmental impact of business become stricter, and businesses react by imposing more ambitious and far-reaching environment goals, this consideration will increase in importance. All MPS providers feature environmental concerns prominently in the description of their offerings in their websites. This attests to the fact that there is – already – a real urgency among a large proportion of the business community to improve their environmental record. MPS is widely predicted to boom in the coming years, with Quocirca research showing that nearly half of companies are planning to expand their usage of MPS, thanks to its proven ability to reduce costs. Also, in its 2014 report, a remarkable number of companies which did not currently have MPS already were planning on introducing it. MPS providers are likely to become increasingly more focused on environmental issues as these rise up the political agenda.