Understanding Office Paper Usage

Mike McDerment - December 6/2006

There it is…our office paper. Last year we went through two boxes like this one. 5000 sheets each. 50 lbs each in weight.

I am weighing our office paper because we are going to be offsetting our paper use as part of our green initiative. In a nutshell there are organizations like Zerofootprint that will help you calculate the environmental impact your paper use has on the environment: trees used, pollution created, water used. Then, for a small fee, they will plant trees to offset your impact.

I will follow up shortly with the details of FreshBooks’ 2006 offsetting (total paper, cost to offset and other considerations) so you can follow along at home. The first step is to record (in weight) your paper use…as you can see I’m doing that…and for those who are wondering, I did weigh the paper on the scale AND I weighed it as a differential between my weight while on the scale with the box in my arms, and my weight without the box. 50 lbs both ways.

Dec 6/06
2:43 pm

Shaula Evans says:

Congratulations on a brilliant initiative, Mike.

I hope you spread the word in the environmental blog community as well as to business bloggers by sending this post in to some of the green blog carnivals (such as http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_123.html.O

Dec 6/06
2:51 pm

Mike McDerment says:

Thanks Shaula - I just submitted the post and we’ll see what happens.

Thanks also for presetting on the green category by the way, and for sending the link in the first place.

- Mike

Dec 7/06
9:47 am

Ryan Scheuermann says:

This is a great idea, and I’m glad to see business leaders like yourselves take such an active role.

I also have an environmental policy for my business, and without Freshbooks, it would be a lot harder! I don’t even own a printer, let alone paper. Contracts, invoices, proposals, etc. are all done electronically.

I wonder what the environmental impact of using your computer all day is? And how do I offset it?

Dec 7/06
12:25 pm

My pleasure, Mike.

I have no affiliation with the carnival, btw (which I should have probably clarified) — I just use the site in the course of my job, and as a FreshBooks user and fan, as well as a paperless-office advocate, I’d love to see you get more exposure for the post.

Dec 11/06
12:41 am

» Carnival of the Green # 57 says:

[...] Mike McDerment presents Understanding Office Paper Usage posted at FreshBooks Blog. [...]

Jan 18/07
6:18 pm

Environmental Accounting for Our Business says:

[...] As many of your know I have been working on a project to determine what the environmental impact of our office is. Last week I got our assessment back, complete with the cost to offset our impact - here is a rundown. [...]