For years now, Yale University has been making efforts to adopt a paperless campus. They discovered that the university was using 211,033 reams of paper in 2011 alone, according to a press release titled “Yale Going Paperless to Save Money, Time, and Trees.” That amount would wrap three-quarters of the way around the earth, and it equates to 12,662 trees. They discovered that a ream of paper is ordered every 2.5 minutes at the university.
Since that discovery, the university has implemented awareness campaigns, strategic planning and various projects that supplant paper-based systems with online documents and storage. At the time, the CIO encouraged the campus to embrace a new digital reality and adopt sustainable office practices.
As a result, Yale was able to decrease their paper consumption by 2.4 percent in 2012. That meant only 203,236 reams of paper were used.
Specific departments within the school have seen cost savings. The Student Employment office adopted electronic documenting for timesheets and saved $100,000 annually. The School of Medicine kept $92,000 in their pockets by using iPads instead of printing out course packets. When printing and mailing reports were stopped, the Finance and Business Operations department saved around $60,000.
They also realized that in addition to paper consumption, the university was wasting money on other costly items like printer supplies.
Additionally, the university understands the importance of going paperless to help streamline work and be more efficient. Yet breaking that habit can be tough for any business, especially when emails are printed and handouts are regularly distributed.
While online document storage was implemented in some areas, the university suggested ways for others to try to do their part in minimizing their use of paper products. It was suggested that when printing, people should reduce margins and fonts, skip coversheets and edit documents electronically using Microsoft Word’s tracking option. It was also suggested that people use their laptops at meetings and use a message program like Microsoft Lync to share information.
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