Why do we still use paper in 2021?

The vast majority of offices in the UK prioritise putting their poor printers to work for employees to produce pointless pieces of paper, just so they can pace around the building to place their sheet on Paul in purchasing’s desk…When they could be simply dragging and dropping their documents to wherever and whomever they want in seconds. Why aren’t we choosing the latter?

Well, it’s actually very simple, paper is reliable. It can’t be hacked. It can’t corrupt. It’s what most people grew up using and they trust it. We can’t take that away from you, but we can shine a light on just how much you’re missing out on by not selecting a digital workplace.

Did you know that the average office worker prints up to 10,000 sheets of paper in the workplace each year? That’s one whole 45ft tall tree worth of paper! And, taking into account domestic paper use, statistics suggest that most people in the UK are using up to 4.5 trees worth of paper each in a single year. Which, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, is a lot of paper.

Most of the paper we use ends up in the waste stream, around 75% to be precise. A lot of this waste comes from printing off unnecessary documents like emails or terms and conditions which, let’s be honest, hardly anyone actually reads. So why not consider switching to a digital workplace? Because paper is cheap, lasts a long time and is a physical object. Well…

Cost

Paper may be cheap by itself, but did you ever consider the costs of running everything that gives you that printed page? The cost of printers, ink, toner, servicing, maintenance and storage make paper significantly more expensive.

Longevity

Yes, paper can go decades and more without falling apart and can remain legible, but how many century-old sheets of paper do you have in your workplace? Not many, I’m guessing. But the physical documents you do store, what happens if your workplace is broken into? What if an “Act of God” were to occur? Your locked filing cabinet can be destroyed, but the cloud can’t be.

Physicality

You may have grown up with paper everywhere, and it may be the only form of stored information you trust, and that is fine. However, more people nowadays are growing up with technology all around them and more business functions are embracing digital, so why not switch to a future-proof paperless workplace? The world is going digital, embrace it.

Could you go paperless? Click here to find out.