The A to Z of green IT

Paperless office

The dream of the paperless office seems as far away from being realised as a cashless society. But a move to a more paper-free working environment could prove a big saving for UK companies, by cutting down on the millions of tonnes of waste paper created each year by printing.

Green IT from A to Z

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A is for Abroad
B is for Blades
C is for Carbon footprint
D is for Data centres
E is for Energy sources
F is for Freecycle
G is for Government
H is for Homeworking
I is for Ice caps
J is for Jobs (Steve)
K is for Kilowatts
L is for Landfill
M is for Mercury
N is for Nanogeneration
O is for Offsetting
P is for Paperless office
Q is for Queen
R is for Recycling
S is for SmartPlanet.com
T is for Travel
U is for Upgrade
V is for Virtualisation
W is for WEEE
X is for Xmas
Y is for You
Z is for Zero emissions

As UK workers churn their way through 4.6 million tonnes of waste paper each year, companies are losing around £59.4bn in revenues, according to copier and printer company Canon.

And the average office worker prints around 1,200 pages of information every month, with nearly 45 per cent of that amount for one-time use, such as assignments, drafts or emails that go straight in the bin, according to printer company Xerox.

One solution to the problem is re-printable printing with Xerox and Toshiba both coming up with ways to bring down the paper mountain. The latter has come up with a printer which allows you to use the same paper up to 500 times - the only problem is it is a very special paper which comes at a very special price.