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How Saving the Environment Can Also Save You Money

Does going green mean higher costs for your small business? Not any more. When you implement more sustainable business practices, you'll see why being good to the environment is also good for your bottom line.

Buy in bulk. Buying your groceries in bulk saves on the per-unit cost and reduces waste by using less packaging. Keep the same principle in mind when you buy supplies like toner or recycled paper. Look for the words "high-efficiency" or "high-capacity" to denote bulk-sized items that lower your per-print or per-unit cost.
Return toner bottles and cartridges for recycling. The Xerox recycling program has kept millions of used supplies out of landfills. To learn more about our program or find pre-paid UPS shipping labels to send back your used supplies, visit the Xerox Green World Alliance site.
Replace stand-alone devices with MFPs. Instead of buying several individual fax machines or printers, buy one product that can print, copy, scan and fax. You'll save money by purchasing supplies for only one device instead of several. Plus, you'll cut energy use you would have used to power separate devices.
Choose energy-saving products. Save money on energy bills by choosing ENERGY STAR compliant printers and multifunction printers. Make sure ENERGY STAR is enabled before you start using the equipment. Some Xerox products can learn your workgroup's usage patterns and automatically adjust between power saving and ready modes to help conserve energy.
Look for environmentally responsible print technologies. Scientific breakthroughs like Xerox-proprietary Emulsion Aggregate (EA) Toner and Solid Ink allow you to print more while creating less waste. EA Toner, delivers sharper, more uniform image quality, longer fuser life, better reliability and lower total cost of ownership over the life of a machine. Solid Ink products use cartridge-free blocks of ink instead of toner. Solid Ink is easy to use, cost-effective and produces up to 90% less waste than comparable color laser printers.
Save on shipping. Solid Ink sticks are significantly smaller than toner cartridges, so they are less expensive to ship and require less storage space.
Think before you print. Use the Print Preview feature to avoid printing unwanted pages. Better yet, use GreenPrint™ software that automatically finds pages with typical waste characteristics, such as pages with just a URL, banner ad, logo or legal jargon, and asks if you want to print them.
Duplex print and copy. Using both sides of a page is the best way to reduce paper use. Double-sided printing is available on most Xerox products, as is a document feeder that can scan both sides of a page at once for fast double-sided copying.
Adjust print driver default settings. Customize your print drivers to become more eco- and budget-friendly. Choose duplex printing as your "default" mode and adjust settings for specific applications, such as always printing emails in black-and-white. Xerox drivers offer the unique ability to customize print settings for each application, allowing you to automatically apply these custom settings each time you print.
Use recycled paper and recycle used paper. The paper industry's goal is to reach 60% paper recovery by 2012, according to the Paper Industry Association Council. Recycling paper fiber saves trees, energy, water and chemicals. Keep a recycling box at each desk to make it easy to collect used paper. And choose environmentally preferable papers such as recycled content papers, and papers certified to sustainable forest management standards (FSC or SFI).
Use scanning to enable digital workflows. Xerox multifunction printers can be your on-ramp for turning paper files into electronic ones. Scanning documents makes them easy to archive, share, email and retrieve. This saves time spent searching for information, and saves money by reducing paper document warehousing or storage costs.
Implement secure printing which holds jobs at the device until a user enters a PIN to claim them. A time-out feature deletes unclaimed jobs, preventing stacks of forgotten prints from piling up at the device. Xerox Secure Print also prevents unauthorized viewing of sensitive documents – a necessity in many legal, health care and financial organizations.
Distribute documents electronically instead of in hard copy when feasible.
Look for pre-owned or refurbished equipment, which is remanufactured to meet original factory specifications, tested and quality-checked by Xerox technicians, and comes with a warranty. Our refurbishment program prevents millions of pounds of material from entering landfills each year.
Take advantage of trade-in offers for Xerox products. Turn in your old device for cash toward a new Xerox printer or multifunction printer. Xerox can dispose of your old device properly or remanufacture the parts to reduce waste.
In dual-component systems, the toner and drum operate separately rather than as a single unit. If the toner or drum runs out, you don't have to replace the whole system at once. Minimize cost while maximizing the life of each toner and drum unit with dual component systems, available in several Xerox office printers.
Use draft modes and toner saving modes for prints that don't require high-quality output, such as emails or rough drafts. Save high-resolution color for prints that matter most, such as presentations and customer-facing materials.
With access restrictions, your administrator determines which features users may access at which times. For example, by choosing black-and-white printing only, or duplex only, or no color after 6 p.m., your office may reduce printing costs and save paper.
Look for Scan to Email and Fax Forward to Email, which are available on many Xerox multifunction printers. These features allow incoming faxes and scans to be routed to an email address, saving unnecessary printing.
Choose a web-based content management system and Fax Forward to Email, such as Xerox DocuShare, to minimize paper usage, storage space and lost time spent searching for information. A content management system will help you manage, edit, route, share and store documents electronically, ensuring immediate access to the most current document at all times.