South African companies should be looking at ways to neutralise the environmental impact of their printers, copiers and multifunctional devices for a quick win in their 'green' IT strategies.
That's according to Ryan Miles, chief operating officer at Itec. He says companies are coming under increased pressure from shareholders and regulators to show they are taking environmental sustainability seriously.
Many investors are looking at the triple-bottom line when they make investment decisions, and government is likely to introduce tougher environmental legislation in the years to come. In future, more and more customers are also likely to want to do business with companies that can show they run their businesses in an environmentally friendly manner.
Against this backdrop, going green can be a competitive advantage, says Miles. One area where companies can make a major impact quickly, as well as at low cost and risk, is within their document output environments.
By taking a proactive approach to the carbon footprints in their printing environments, companies can show their stakeholders they are committed to sustainability and put themselves in a strong position for the inevitable introduction of carbon emission laws and regulations in South Africa.
Miles says there are a number of ways that companies can inject environmental responsibility into their print environments, starting off by measuring their carbon footprint and doing what they can to reduce it. They can achieve this by cutting back print volumes where it makes sense and introducing greener, more energy-efficient printing equipment.
Organisations should also pay attention to disposing of older equipment in an environmentally friendly manner. For example, Itec has worked closely with clients to refurbish old printers and copiers in order to donate them to charities and schools, giving deserving organisations much-needed office equipment and preventing equipment from ending up in a landfill prematurely.
Once they have driven their environmental impact down through such measures, companies can then look for ways to audit and offset their carbon footprints, says Miles. Itec is the first office automation vendor in South Africa to come to market with such an offering as a value-added service. Itec has established an exclusive partnership with impactChoice for a carbon offset programme that is based on micro-certificates that are fully auditable.
Measuring and offsetting the relatively small amount of carbon emissions produced by office automation equipment was too costly and complex to be worth the effort in the past, says Miles. Companies could also not buy carbon offset credits in small enough quantities from the voluntary and formal carbon exchanges, for it to be viable for them to offset office automation emissions.
The impactChoice/Itec solution solves these problems by offering clients guaranteed carbon offset credits backed up by micro-certificates which are linked to certificates traded on the global voluntary and formal carbon exchanges.
"Now it is easy and convenient for companies to measure and offset carbon emissions based on carbon dioxide equivalent emissions generated per single sheet of paper," says Miles. "What's more, they can show objective and auditable data about their carbon emission offsets to offer shareholders and the public in triple-bottom line reporting - and to regulators if and when laws governing carbon emissions are introduced in South Africa."
Ryan Miles can be contacted on +27 11 236 2000 and Ryan.Miles@itecgroup.co.za, or for more information, visit http://www.itecgroup.co.za/.
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Itec
Itec is southern Africa's fastest growing and third largest office automation, production printing and telecommunications solutions provider - with annual revenue of nearly one billion rand. Through its 47 South African branches and an international footprint that includes the United Kingdom, the company implements total office solutions based on imported, industry-leading, and award-winning products.
Itec serves medium-sized and large businesses in sectors as diverse as financial services and retail - supporting its innovative solutions with proactive service delivery. Some of its 18 000 customers include Value Logistics, Implats, Department of Housing, Business Connexion, ADT, Rand Refinery, First National Bank, Anglogold Ashanti, National Health Laboratory Services and Advtech.
Itec management rebranded the company in 2004 following a merger of the separate copier, printer, and fax business units initially established in 1987.
For more information, please see http://www.itecgroup.co.za/.
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