Make your office ancient forest friendly

By reducing paper use, you reduce the pressure on ecologically vital forest areas. Using recycled paper and paper sourced from responsible materials (such as Forest Stewardship Council certified wood) encourages paper producers to stock these forest-saving items.

How to make your office paper ancient forest friendly

1. Create a group in your office to spearhead an eco-friendly paper program designed to reduce, reuse and recycle paper. Establish the use of only ancient forest friendly paper in your office as a goal.

2. Monitor paper usage and set targets to reduce the amount of paper used in your unit. Set up competitions and have prizes for departments that best meet the targets of the program.

3. Include identification of the type of paper used (recycled, tree free, FSC-certified) on all printed pieces, to educate customers and vendors about the high quality papers available and your company's environmental commitment.

4. Only use ancient forest friendly paper.

Ancient forest friendly paper is:

• Recycled paper
• And/or paper produced with virgin fibre originating from forests certified to FSC standards
  
• And/or tree free paper sources (eg, agricultural residue, cotton, hemp, flax and kenaf)
• Avoid the "recyclable" trap. Almost all paper can be recycled. If a brand is labelled "100% recyclable" it may not be made from recycled fibre.
  

Photocopiers and printers

• Set photocopy machines and printers to print double-sided by default.
• Have a tray by the printers and photocopiers for reusing paper printed on one side only. Put instructions on the printer/photocopier on whether to load blank side up, or down. (Of course, don't reuse papers with sensitive financial, personal or confidential information on the printed side. Reuse only what you would normally throw out unshredded.)
• Use single sided waste paper for printing drafts.
  
• Introduce codes for use of photocopiers and printers. This can provide insight to everyone's paper consumption. This is particularly helpful and motivating when working towards consumption reduction goals.
• Ensure paper stocks are stored in dry conditions to reduce potential paper jamming in machines and paper wastage.
• When purchasing new printers and photocopy equipment, ensure they can easily duplex (technical term for being able to print double sided).
• Set the printer and photocopy machine so that no cover pages are printed.
  

Mail

• Use two-way envelopes (the same envelope can be used for both send and return) when response is required. This saves paper, inventory, storage, handling and printing costs.
• Print double sided bills and applications.
• Reduce the poundage (weight) of paper to save postage costs.
• Reuse incoming envelopes for correspondence. Use address labels to cover original information.
• Use inter-office envelopes, which can be reused multiple times.

Faxes

• Ditch the cover sheet.
• Program your machine so that it doesn't print out confirmation sheets.
• Format faxes carefully to eliminate excessive pages.

Tricks to avoid using paper

• Circulate electronic memos and staff newsletters, instead of printed versions.
• Adjust fonts, type size, margins and spacing to fit more text on a standard sheet and delete extra pages at the end of your document or email before you print it out.
• Send/receive faxes by computer.
• Group edit the same document on screen by passing it around and using various colour fonts.
• Reuse paper printed on one side for draft documents, note pads, internal memos.

Company documents/reports

• Send electronic versions of annual reports and other company materials and save on printing costs.
• Reduce the size of your printed materials.
• Reduce the weight of paper used in your printed materials.

Around the office

• Post memos on a central bulletin board rather than circulating lots of copied versions.
• Order all supplies in bulk to minimise packaging waste.
• Reuse file folders and binders.
• In the toilets, use cloth towel dispensers rather than paper towels.
  

At lunch

• If you get a paper serviette with your lunch order, give it back.
• Recycle your paper sandwich bag.