Doing your bit for the planet isn’t just limited to what you do at home. Many businesses have realised that going green doesn’t just make environmental sense, it can also help them save money.

Digitising paperwork is one easy way you can help reduce your company’s impact on the planet – and improve efficiencies and your business’s bottom line. Here's how:

• Receive faxes on email. You’ll not only reduce your paper consumption, but you’ll never lose a fax again.
• Circulate memos, agendas, minutes and other documents via email. This will reduce paper and ink costs – and save some trees at the same time.
• Think about whether you really need to print something out. Usually reading it on screen or forwarding it electronically will be just as good. If you must print something, make sure you print on both sides and use the ‘fast draft, black ink only’ settings to save paper and ink.
• Electronic documents stored on a central server are quick and easy to access. They can be found by all who might need them, making your teams more efficient.
• Once your documents are saved electronically, make sure the originals are recycled. Recycle all documents that are past their ‘save’ date too – like financial records that are no longer needed after 5 years have passed. Many recycling businesses will come and collect your paper waste and recycle it for you.
• Eliminating large quantities of hardcopy files and paper-based information will free up space. This might even mean you can reduce your monthly overheads by renting smaller premises or subletting the area that has been freed up.

This is the first in a series of ‘green’ articles which we’ll be featuring on the First Coast site. We are working hard to reduce the impact our business has on the environment and we invite you to join us in our Green Mission.