Altodigital finds 76 percent of UK companies consider printed pages “mission critical” to their business.
The digital print and document solutions supplier conducted a survey on 1,000 decision makers at businesses across the UK to determine whether offices will be paperless in the future, with the study finding that businesses are actually heading in the opposite direction due to “inefficient storage practices and an ever-increasing volume of wasted paper, energy and consumables”.
Just five percent of respondents indicated that they believe they will be paper-free within the next five years, increasing to 11 percent in 10 years, with over three-quarters expecting printed pages to remain “mission critical” to their operation.
Staff at the businesses were also found to have a “less-than-frugal” attitude to printing, with 46 percent choosing to always print in colour rather than black and white, 39 percent opting to print single-sided documents instead of using duplex, and 35 percent regularly printing out emails to read. Meanwhile, 46 percent of companies admitted that they do not track their printing costs and half don’t track their paper use.
A popular option is to “double up” documents, with 90 percent of businesses storing important documents both electronically and in hard-copy form and only 40 percent choosing to store their files electronically-only.
Despite these findings, 73 percent of respondents already have print and document management technology in place, enabling staff to track costs and manage documents in a greener way; although 27 percent of managers failed to inform their staff of the “green” print and document technologies they could be using. 66 percent of companies meanwhile have internal and external targets in place to reduce their paper consumption in the future.
Asked why they still choose to print hard copies of documents, 45 percent of respondents said they prefer the convenience of having a hard-copy document to hand, 30 percent “didn’t trust” storing or using electronic documents, and a third believed printing a hard-copy document “carries more gravitas” than an electronic version. 19 percent also thought that “going paperless” was too complicated and expensive, while 15 percent blamed the “print it out” culture ingrained across their companies.
Commenting on the findings, Tony Burnett, Group Sales Director at Altodigital, said: “The paperless office is not a new trend by any means, but as the research shows, we’re seeing real resistance from staff up and down the country when it comes to putting it into practice. This is surprising given the very real benefits of moving towards a paper-free environment, such as significant cost and efficiency savings, not to mention the ability to operate in a greener capacity.
“There is also a general misunderstanding into what a paperless environment is, and it’s not just a case of printing less. A shift towards a true paperless office also involves examining how you use paper in its broadest capacity, for example, electronically filing and sharing documents, reducing storage costs and improving efficiencies.
“Perhaps we need to stop talking about going ‘paperless’ and instead focus on what is realistic; reducing our reliance on the printed page. We call this the ‘paper-less’ environment, and with the right technology and guidance businesses can escape the inefficiencies and limitations of paper-based systems.”
An infographic showing the results from the survey can be viewed here.