Nov 30 2009
A new research conducted by Ricoh has shown that business leaders in Europe are missing chances unnecessarily. They miss chances to reduce environmental impact and drive efficiencies through document governance.
The research has found out that only minimum number of European businesses set targets and audit the environment aspects of their document governance, which includes recycling and energy efficiency. Senior managers set 67% for document governance and 41% for environmental targets. The finding suggests that European business owners underestimate the contribution of cost reduction strategies in the goals of their organizations. Due to non-availability of continuous auditing processes and measurements, ongoing sustainability improvements will become a challenge for many businesses.
The research has also found out that many organizations adopt a decentralized approach to document governance. Only 39% of companies have implemented a strategy in their business. This shows that they overlook simple planned actions that can bring about immediate positive impact on sustainability.
The key results include the following. According to the findings, 32% of business leaders, their employees do what they like when it comes to printing on both sides of the paper and only 18% of the companies have implemented a policy company-wide. 47% of European business leaders are not familiar with the recycling policy of their company and 40% of the companies are not familiar with their toner recycling policy. When employees are asked if they consider environmental benefits when printing, 5.5 in a scale of ten to one showed that they cared a lot or do not care at all.
There are significant differences between countries in relation to adoption of sustainable document governance. France is the leading country in Europe, and UK and Ireland follows it. Recycling, setting targets, auditing, and employee behaviors are the important aspects of document governance. Ricoh Document Governance Index tracked seven countries, namely, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and United Kingdom. No country from this list scored above 50% of the possible maximum score, which suggested that there is enough space for improvement to reduce overall environmental impacts.