Going Green

David Skinner
Small Business Sales Consultant

Going green has become more than an industry buzzword. Lately it has become an expected way of doing business. The cost savings of using environmentally friendly products is only one reason. People are finding that doing business in an environmentally responsible manner leads to happier, healthier, and more productive employees.

While I don’t have the time needed or depth of knowledge to help you go completely green, I can help you with one area that is always present: your technology. It’s very easy to justify an upgrade that is more in line with green thinking if that upgrade presents a significant savings in money, space, and employee productivity or comfort. Two primary areas that I want to focus on are Printing and Displays.

LCD displays are becoming the standard for all businesses these days. The cost is down, the energy savings are pretty significant, and most employees are happier with them. LCD displays also offer a considerable savings in desktop real estate. Typical HP LCD monitors take up 1/5th the space and consume 1/5th the energy of a comparatively sized CRT monitor. Make sure to look for an LCD that is energy star rated for maximum power savings. HP LCD monitors also offer much crisper text and images due to color filtering for each sub-pixel and higher brightness and contrast ratios than typical CRT monitors. They also minimize glare and screen flicker letting employees who have to stare at the screen all day work longer before experiencing eyestrain and fatigue. Lastly LCD’s are much easier to recycle at the end of their lifecycle making safe responsible disposal much easier.

Printing is one area that businesses can definitely realize a savings by going green and upgrading to a workgroup Multi Function Printer. Paper costs money, supplies cost money, support costs money and electricity costs money. By consolidating your individual desktop printers into one larger workgroup printer that supports duplexing you can save on all fronts. You will have one printer to purchase supplies for. You can print on both sides of the paper saving cost on paper and postage (if you mail the documents). You can do your own in house printing of advertisements to save on marketing funds. Also, you only have one printer to support for all users. A lot of businesses that deal with confidential information are hesitant to move to a workgroup printer. However some workgroup HP Multi Function devices support secure pin based printing, which will hold your job until you get there and allow it to print.

Once you figure the total cost of ownership of several desktop printers you will quickly realize that a workgroup printer is the only way to go.  For example, factor in the cost of multiple ink cartridges that yield an average page count of 200-500 pages times the number of desktop printers you have. Compared to an average toner cartridge that yields 2000-3500 pages for a single Multi Function Printer, you will see the savings.  It’s also possible to implement an energy policy on larger workgroup printers. You can have it go into a sleep mode that will save a considerable amount of electricity when not in use.  Again look for energy star Multi Function Printers that are energy star rated for maximum savings.

Going green will be a long journey that all businesses will eventually undergo in one way or another. Hopefully I’ve touched on a few ways to help you go green that will be beneficial to you, your business and your employees. I’ve included some links to more info that may be of use to anyone considering replacing their CRT monitor or desktop printers.

HP Eco Solutions program

Behind the screens of flat panel monitors