How to implement an electronic workflow?
2021-07-115 problems that DocuSign® solves
2021-08-29Less waste, CO2 emissions, global warming, droughts – terms related to ecology and the general state of our planet are resounding more and more often – both in the media and directly from our mouths during everyday conversations. More and more individuals are taking steps on their own to protect the environment – trying to conserve water and reduce the amount of garbage generated. Even more good can be done by companies, those smaller and larger (including yours!), among others, by digitizing processes and reducing paper consumption.
Why can implementing an electronic workflow system really help take care of the planet? Does electronic = green?
We are drowning in paper
Every second (!) is another 10 tons of paper produced in the world. About 17 trees need to be cut down to produce 1 ton of paper, and one tree produces enough oxygen for 10 people in a year.
Going further – in the next 5 minutes you will spend reading this article, 300 tons of paper will be produced on the planet. To produce them, 5100 trees were cut down, which could give oxygen to…. more than 50,000 people! Pretty impressive, right?
The State of Global Paper Industry reports indicates that the global average annual paper consumption per person is 55 kg. Poland is in the infamous list of 26 countries where this average is as much as twice as high – in our country one person uses on average as much as 143 kg of paper. Unfortunately – a very large part of this consumption is generated by companies whose functioning is based on generating paper documents – contracts, invoices, reports and other printouts, about 70% of which have a short-term value and soon after printing land in the trash.
Not only paper documents
The work of companies that base their operations mainly on paper documents generates a lot of additional waste – not only paper. A big problem in many companies are toners, or rather used plastics from inks and toners. These, with intensive production, are consumed en masse and – unfortunately – often dumped in the regular mixed waste garbage can. It is estimated that only 50-70% of purchased toner cartridges go to the appropriate companies for disposal. The rest land in the trash and decompose for many years, poisoning our environment.
In document processing companies, printers are traditionally very heavily used equipment. And it is obvious that if something is used intensively, it often breaks down quite quickly. This creates more electro-waste, which, when improperly disposed of or recycled, is a huge burden on our planet.
Save the environment and your own money
By basing your company’s operations on a good electronic document workflow system integrated with an electronic signature (such as Hatiroo™ with the DocuSign® platform), you will be able to significantly reduce the amount of paper and toner used annually in your company. DocuSign® estimates that up to 465 million kilograms of trees have been saved thanks to their platform! The electronic workflow will further minimize the number of printed invoices, as well as internal documents such as bylaws, procedures, and briefs.
Giving up paper also means lower energy costs (printers and scanners are often on around the clock, after all) and reduced costs associated with processing a document from start to finish. With electronic document circulation, you don’t have to print dozens of sheets of paper, waste time on email scrambling, search in a hurry for people authorized to sign for a contract, or pay for transporting a document to a contractor – whether by cab or courier.
Nothing is black and white
Unfortunately, however, there are no perfect solutions. We are not trying to say that digitizing documents is a 100% green solution. Also, using the Internet, operating a network or running a server room leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions. Using the Internet is not indifferent to the environment, but the economy has to work, and it is our job to choose solutions that will be the least harmful to the planet and the most convenient and practical for ourselves. If you want to positively affect the level of CO2 emissions emitted by Internet use, instead of scrolling through social networks, choose a good book and clean up your email inbox. Every little step counts!
If you care about both going green and reducing your company’s costs for daily document processing, contact us – we’ll be happy to advise you on how to organize your company’s document workflow and tell you about helpful solutions.