How Green Is Your Printer?
How Green Is Your Printer?
March 25, 2008
Claudia H Deutsch
The New York Times
By now everyone knows that routinely printing out e-mails or Web pages is a waste of paper and ink — and thus, of money.
Now Xerox wants to persuade customers that it is also an assault on the environment.
Xerox Sustainability CalculatorXerox’s new tool can calculate the carbon footprint of printers and copiers.
On Tuesday, Xerox is introducing a Sustainability Calculator, a tool that representatives of its Office Services unit will use to help companies gauge the environmental impact of their printers and copiers. Xerox will enter data about various printers, copiers and multi-function devices (including those made by Xerox competitors) and their average monthly printing volume. The calculator will then estimate the amount of energy and “consumables” — toners, paper and the like — that is used in printing. And it will tabulate the greenhouse gas emissions, paper waste, air pollution or other environmental no-nos associated with the non-transportation-related aspects of the manufacture, use and eventual disposal of the devices.
For do-it-yourselfers, a scaled-down version of the calculator, which only looks at carbon footprint of printers, will be available on the Xerox Web site.
The business reason for all this information? “It’s easier to get employees to give up their personal printers if you tell them that the equipment is sucking energy,” said Patricia Calkins, vice president of environment, health and safety.
Many of the suggestions will result in printing less, of course, so it might seem counterintuitive for Xerox, which makes nice profits from consumables, to lead customers down that path.
Not so, Ms. Calkins said. “It gives us a foot in the door with companies that are using other vendors, because it helps them quantify how optimizing their document technologies helps them reach their own sustainability goals,’’ she said.
And, of course, buying spanking new Xerox multifunction devices is high on the list of things that Xerox people will suggest for ways to green up the corporate document
