How to Be More Sustainable and Reduce the Amount of Paper You Use at Work

Julie Starr • May 23, 2022



Paper waste is one of the most preventable operation costs that your company will experience. We now live in an era of cloud storage and communication tends to be mobile-first too. This means that there is no excuse for you to be using paper as much as you do because it is now easier than ever to share and even store data without needing it at all. Employees tend to have a real tendency for taking printing equipment for granted, and if you want your business to be more sustainable and eco-friendly, then it is vital that you try and target this as soon as possible.

Give your Team Dual Monitors

You may feel that giving your team a dual monitor is way more expensive when compared to letting them print out details on paper, but you are missing an important point. If you have a dual-monitor setup, then you may find that your team won’t need to print out documents as often, and this can make the manual transfer of data way simpler when compared to paper. Studies have shown that dual monitors also help to increase productivity as well as user satisfaction, which is huge, to say the least.

Duplex Printing

If you print on each side of the paper, you can instantly cut down on the amount of paper you use by over 50%. If you have a duplex rule, then you can easily make sure that every employee follows this rule, and this can reduce your print costs. It’s not just printing costs that you have to worry about though. If you have a waiting room, then you may buy newspapers or magazines, but what you don’t realize is that by investing in things like this, you are also wasting paper. One way for you to work around this would be for you to invest in an entertainment system such as Loop.tv .

Print Policies

If you want to make sure that you are actively reducing the paper that you use in the workplace, you have to make sure that you communicate any expectations that you have clearly. If you have a print policy, then this will lay out the rules regarding printing, and it also helps your team to understand why you are trying to save paper. Tell your team which documents they should be printing and which ones they shouldn’t. You should also tell them what kind of printing is suited to a particular document. It may be that you only have color-printing for documents that are customer-focused and that you have black and white printing for everything else.

Empower your Employees

If reducing paper is a top priority for you, then you need to make sure that you are just not pushing it onto your employees. You have to try and make sure that you empower them so that your team regulates their use without you having to remind them constantly. You also need to make sure that your sustainability efforts are part of your culture, and that your team actively shares in the mission that you have. If you can do this, then you will soon find that it is easier for you to come out on top overall. 

Reducing Font Size

Another super-easy way for you to reduce the amount of paper that you use would be for you to try and squeeze more information onto each piece of paper that you use. If you can reduce the print margins that you have and if you can use a smaller font size, then this will make a huge difference to your paper consumption, and you may even find that it helps you to cut down on cost too.

Use Modern Printers

If you are using older print equipment, then this will really stop you from being able to implement a sustainable practice overall. If you are using older printers, then you may find that you are not able to be as efficient as you want to be when it comes to printer ink and that you are also not able to scan things into the cloud. This is the last thing that you need, but there are things that you can do to turn things around, such as by investing in a solid, modern printer. It’ll pay for itself in no time, which can save you a huge amount of money overall.

So why not see if you can implement some of these measures today to see how much you could save? It has never been easier for you to make a positive change.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.