Companies should be recycling more in their workplace according to a survey carried out by document solutions specialists Kyocera Mita.
In a recent survey carried out by Kyocera Mita Europe, British companies thought that their company could recycle more. 89% believed this to be the case, higher than the European average of 69.4%. “Print less” campaigns seem especially popular in the UK, where 55% of companies –over 20 percent more than in the other countries – support them.
It was also revealed that the British think that making employees more aware of environmental protection issues is crucial. 73% see this task as important, compared to 62% in Germany and 59% in France.
The survey was carried out by the IFAK Institut for Kyocera and examined how employees in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain believed environmental issues impacted on their own working practices and the actions of their companies.
Around 90% of respondents indicated that they had adopted some ‘green’ practices for minimising their own environmental impact at work. 55% switch off equipment at night; 52% use electronic documents; 43% favour duplex photocopying and printing; and around 34% have reduced their printing unnecessary documents. Only 9.7% of people questioned admitted to not doing any of these.
The survey also revealed that – according to their employees – many European companies are making efforts to drive down the use of printing consumables. 44.8% recycle used cartridges and toner cassettes, 40.8% encourage the use of electronic documents; 36.5% try to save paper by printing less; 32.5% encourage double-sided printing and copying.
Despite positive moves in areas like printing, 77% of the respondents believe that their company could do more to optimise its energy consumption in general, and 69% believe that their company could recycle more. Moreover, 64% feel that companies should make their employees aware of environmental issues within the company.
The survey also found that many employees believe that green initiatives are being driven by a need to cut costs. When asked why they thought companies were implementing green IT initiatives, the majority (38.1%) thought that the objective for changes was cost savings. Fewer (24.9%) believe that companies are aiming to save the environment. 21% saw green IT as a means to boosting a company’s image.
The survey was based on interviews with 627 respondents from a broad range of industry sectors in February 2008.
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