Today several companies and customers are looking forward towards products that consume less power and are easy to reprocess as they reach end-of-life. In this process of ushering in a green revolution within their system, they are not only increasing efficiency but also building up a case of being responsible to the environment and enjoying sustainable growth.

Green has become an vital part of any successful company’s IT operations today as it steps up its initiatives to turn environment-friendly and cut costs. Companies are gradually embracing the concept of recycling office paper and printer cartridges, and reducing energy use to bring down their impact on the environment.

The printing industry seems to be going green across continents and printing machinery manufacturers are adopting modern technologies in ink and substrates for an environment-friendly impact.

In order to adopt green printing, companies are designing solutions which can identify whether a user needs a color printer. The solution allots printers accordingly. They are also adopting duplex printing in a big way. Using duplex printing can result in savings of tons of paper per year and also in economic terms per annum. It helps in reducing paper spend and associated costs. Companies now are looking towards effective and smart printing rather than bulk.

The best way to go green with regard to printing is through the usage of high quality printers which consume less electricity and are highly efficient.

Ways to go green printing include:

* Companies must try and reduce paper utilization, which accounts for much of the environmental impact of printing, by adopting duplex printing where practical

* They must examine document workflows to eradicate unnecessary printouts by tracking usage

* Organizations should look to unite printers and copiers so that the resulting smaller population of devices consumes less energy

* Try and ensure that empty cartridges are decomposed in an environmentally friendly manner. Organizations shouldn’t hesitate in asking vendors to provide them with details about the green strategies and programs of technology providers

* Organizations that are willing to invest time and resources will find that a comprehensive print management solution can help in user authentication, tracking, setting and enforcing quotas, and limitations on what employees can and cannot print. This, in turn, will keep the print costs in control and reduce the number of pages being printed

* Administrative tools like PIN printing, Pull printing and Access Cards will also help to reduce waste

“Companies need to incorporate the latest technologies available across IT hardware and other segments to lessen their carbon footprint and go the green way,” said Princy Bhatnagar, Director Office Business Group, Xerox India.

“Customers are looking for ways to become greener but are shying away due to the misconception that it costs more,” said Vishal Tripathi, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner.

“Managed Print Services can help companies save between 10-30% of their costs, while helping them remain energy-efficient,” said Nitin Hiranandani, Director – Enterprise Sales & Services, Imaging & Printing Group, HP India.

Benefits of green printing:

Green printing offers printing services that do not harm our planet and are less expensive. In the long run, green printing can yield better cost savings than conventional printing.

* The use of ‘green’ inks makes for an easier and improved method of disposing inks without harming the environment

* ‘Green’ Paper is not treated with chlorine and is 100% recyclable. This helps protect our forests

* While all printing facilities require power to run, green printing services consider the environment when searching for a power source. This allows others to invest in renewable energy methods reducing impact on the environment

Challenges faced during the adoption of green printing:

Some of the key challenges faced when implementing imaging and printing solutions in enterprises, are:

* Customers need to understand that there is an opportunity to save money and that the true total cost of ownership is not limited to printers and ink

* Usually printers are handled by IT and copiers/fax by the administration department. The hard copy savings for an organization can be truly addressed only by including both these aspects of usage. However, IT procurement officers usually ask only for printers to be taken over, ignoring other machines in the process

* Customers also need to evaluate what they really want from MPS. Quality should not be compromised on, because using inferior equipment can lead to its frequent breakdown under the load of printing/copying required by customer. In such a situation, even SLAs are not useful as there is a drop in productivity

* There also emerges a challenge when it comes to getting the legal teams of both customer and vendor to agree to all terms and conditions

* During execution, sometimes there is resistance to change from end users, as they are used to have individual, convenient printers

* Removal of obsolete equipment, especially if the customer is a bonded warehouse, is a time-consuming and expensive process to de-bond old equipment and remove it from the grounds for eco-safe recycling.