We’ve all been in a pandemic fog, but it should still be no surprise that the digital transformation era has continued to accelerate over the past two years.
Because of this transition, many organizations have adopted digital document tools that enable document sharing, collaboration, and workflow automation in all areas to improve business operations and deliver value to customers.
Digital document tools like eSignatures pretty much eliminate the need for printers, fax machines, ink, and filing cabinets.
These devices are also bulky, unnecessary, (not to mention environmental killers), physical paper can totally cramp your office supplies budget.
Surprisingly, even though many have adopted paperless tools, many businesses are still clinging to physical documents out of comfort.
In the United States alone, printed forms cost over $120 billion each year, with around 45% of that paper ending up in the trash or becoming outdated within three months.
We’re just going to say it. Printers have no place in the modern office. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Printing out digital documents for the sake of convenience defeats the purpose of your investment in digital tools.
It’s completely unnecessary to print documents when paperless processes allow you to create, manage, and store them electronically for a fraction of the cost.
Paper’s environmental impact
This heavy reliance on paper and paper-based products has a significant impact on Earth too. Trees are the lungs of Earth.
They absorb toxic pollutants like carbon dioxide and, in return, release oxygen into the air through photosynthesis.
Creating office paper produces approximately 245,000 metric tons of toxic air pollutants every year. Wow, right? Office paper also contributes to the loss of endangered species and habitats for our beloved pandas.
Recycling is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and the number of trees harvested each year, but the best way to reduce paper use is by transitioning to a paperless office. Bye, bye papercuts.
Benefits of a paperless office
Cutting down on paper not only helps create a more sustainable environment, but it can help future-proof your business, especially as more companies move into a hybrid or remote-first work environment.
Switching to a paperless business operation can help you save time, boost productivity, and cut costs – many small business owners also believe that a paperless document process could save them up to $5,000 per year.
Imagine what else you could use that $5k on to support your business goals?
A comprehensive document management tool like PandaDoc can be indispensable as you transition from static PDFs and Word documents to digital documents.
PandaDoc provides an easier way for you to place orders, manage human resources, bill customers, and do other business operations that rely on documents.
Here are some more little PandaDoc fun facts for you: in 2021, our customers sent on average 2,189,804 documents for eSign each month.
They were busy!
With the average business document sent in PandaDoc being around four pages, we prevented businesses from using an estimated 8,759,216 sheets of paper each month – saving a calculated 12,600* trees in 2021, according to the Environmental Paper Network Paper Calculator.
Now that’s some green we can all get behind.
*Environmental impact estimates were calculated using the Environmental Paper Network Paper Calculator Version 4.0. For more information, visit www.papercalculator.org”
