2011 – UN International Year of the Forest

Did you know that 2011 was the UN International Year of the Forest?  As the UN announces key project for each year we at BEAR are very excited about this years selection.

We are excited for the cause, it’s obviously an important one, and we are also excited because BEAR product can directly help organisations do what they can to reduce their office paper use and in turn reduce the amount of deforestation due to tree feeling needed for paper production.

Waste of paper through poor printing and photocopying controls will impact on two fronts: economical and environmental. The process of printing and reading a document is something ingrained into us humans. We are tactile creatures after all and many (despite the papercuts!) like to hold paper in our hands. We do need to change this and here’s how BEAR products can help:

1. Auto duplex documents. Through PrinterCUB documents can be forced to print duplex regardless of what the user selects in the print driver. Of course where there is a requirement to print single sided documents a simple override pop up dialogue box is presented (and only to approved users). By duplexing documents users are reducing their paper useage by 50%
2. Restrict users printing certain document types. Emails for example can consume vast numbers of pages particularly when a long email thread is involved. By not allowing these document types to be printed you will prevent potential large amounts of wastage
3. Inform users of the potential business and environmental cost during the print process. This can be done via a Pop up asking the user to confirm or accept that they understand the impact or the user can be informed via a notification bubble indicating that next time they should consider some impact reduction options such as duplexing
4. Implement a cost recovery solution like BEAR CMSIP. Typically we see a 30% reduction in the print and copy volumes once users realise their printing and copying is being tracked

Through CMSIP and PrinterCUB organisational heads are able to delivery a significant improvement to the business and environment economically. A single users conscientious effort, while should be congratulated, has little impact. Organisational wide changes are significant and immediate. CMSIP will support a “light” implementation plan and this is also key to such a products success. When a print environment is so entrenched changing the process will require significant change on the users behalf and often this is difficult. By slowly introducing CMSIP users can be made aware via simple ballon notifications or pop up messages when printing what their environmental impact just was and that in a said number of days a change to their print process will occur.