According to Business Week, computers and e-mail have increased rather than decreased the amount of paper used in offices.  Remember how we thought the office would go completely paperless?  It still can if you follow some of these handy tips:

1.  Please Don’t Print
If you add “Please don’t print this e-mail, save a tree” or something similar to your outgoing e-mails, your colleagues will probably be less likely to print out e-mails that they may not need to from you.  Since they know you, it doesn’t sound preachy.

2.  Cut and Paste
If you get orders in off of e-mail, don’t print them out for the order entry department.  Instead, show them how to cut and paste.  You’ll not only increase productivity by saving keystrokes, you’ll save paper.  Many office workers don’t know the simple window commands that allow them to cut and paste between applications.

These are:
- Ctrl-A – Select All in e-mail or document
- Ctrl-C – Copy selected items in document (you can also select with the cursor if you don’t want everything)
- Ctrl-V – Paste copied items into another program or window

Those three commands alone may save your office reams of paper while making your staff feel just a little more computer savvy.

3.  Train Management
Some members of management prefer to have an e-mail printed out rather than forwarded to them.  If your boss is one of these, try to reason with them to see if you can convince them to accept forwards for environmental reasons.

Explain that you don’t feel comfortable printing off e-mails when they can simply be forwarded and offer to help them organize their inbox if they are experiencing problems organizing their e-mail flow – this is the most likely reason for their request.  They may just need some quick lessons on how to create folders or flag their e-mails.

4.  Campaign for Recycled Paper
Talk to your purchasing manager about looking for more eco-friendly alternatives to the paper that you are currently using.  They may be surprised to learn that eco-friendly paper costs the same or less than “regular” office paper.

Tags: eco-friendly office, please do not print this e-mail

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