Document management system for sustainable future

Maureen Chinweokwu of Young & Bailey Nigeria Limited and Hamzat Bala Lawal of the International Centre for Energy, Environment & Development (ICEED) stress in this piece that every business should strive to have a positive impact on the environment and its community by adopting and implementing sustainable policies that improve the quality of life for its customers and employees.

Everywhere, on the news; the internet; adverts; politics; social movements; entertainment and even in technology, environmental friendliness is being promoted. So we engage ourselves by using energy saving bulbs, planting trees and flowers, eating less of processed foods and recycling.

We now see the need to go green and develop environmental friendly habits at work, home, schools, while having fun and in every area of our life because, it has become increasingly clear to us that our lifestyle and that of others including plants, animals and the whole ecosystems affect the wellbeing of the planet.

Protection of plants and trees often come up as a major step to environmental protection. The retention of the flora and fauna of the ecosystem goes a long way in maintaining the balance that is much sort after. It is therefore necessary to also reduce, if not eliminate the use of products generated from plants and trees. Often times, hardcopy documents is an overlooked item of a company’s “green strategy”. It should not be so. The costs to the environment of using paper, ink, toner as well as machines like photocopiers, printers, faxes which consume energy are considerable.

As you know, paper is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood or grasses, and processing them into flexible sheets – Paper. Therefore, we can easily derive that using so much paper in our day to day activities at work encourages the destruction of trees in our forests used to produce paper which in turn affects the eco system.

Organisations by choosing to become less dependent on hard copy documents with the implementation of a document management system will not only save the ecosystem but will save cost, increase profit and operate much more efficiently and cost effectively than they had ever done.

Every business should strive to have a positive impact on the environment and its community. It should go beyond scholarships, development programs or regulatory compliance to demonstrate a commitment to the community housing it. Rather, it should adopt and implement sustainable policies that improve the quality of life for its customers, employees and the whole planet while at the same time greatly improving its bottom line.

Document Management solutions electronically capture, store, and manage documents much more efficiently than any paper system. In addition to increasing business efficiencies, going paperless gives an organization a competitive edge by enhancing document access and sharing with customers, staff and partners.

The word out there is ‘Going Green’ for Sustainable Development.

Let’s go green and make a difference in our environments by preserving energy usage; saving our ecosystem; protecting our forests; creating innovative opportunities which leads to job creation and promoting sustainable development for all.

Sources: Daily Independent, ECO NIGERIA.