Print operations are part and parcel of many businesses’ daily workflows. However, traditional print operations generate a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions due to paper wastage and the printers’ energy consumption. That is not counting the energy-intensive processes behind the production, transportation and eventual disposal of paper. As such, businesses looking to embark or enhance their sustainability journeys need to zero in on their printing habits. This is where cloud-based print management solutions come in.
Data-driven sustainability
Data is the bedrock of any successful sustainability plan, and cloud-based print management solutions can help track printing habits as well as costs. Administrators can gain insights into usage trends by user, department and company levels. From there, they can make informed decisions and roll out measures to pre-empt print wastage. These include setting quota on colour printing as well as print volume on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Such centralised management allows businesses to ensure that only necessary documents are printed as well as limit ink wastage.
Reducing overall energy consumption
With cloud-based print management solutions such as uniFLOW Online offered by Canon, businesses can easily optimise their printing processes. First, users can seamlessly connect their laptops, smartphones and tablets to the office’s printing infrastructure without the need for complex driver installations. What’s more, it serves as a unifying platform for office printing, document scanning, mobile printing, device management, bringing together all the multifunctional devices of a business. This allows businesses to understand usage patterns across different devices, allowing for more detailed insights that will help drive sustainability
businesses have embraced hybrid work arrangements, and have both on-site and remote teams. Cloud-based print management solutions allow remote workers to send print jobs from their devices, wherever they are. The device will wake from its sleep mode when it receives a printing job or when a user is present to collect his prints.This reduces the need for local, always-on and energy-consuming printers.
Cloud-powered efficiency
In addition, a cloud-based print management solution eliminates the need for on-site print servers, which consume significant energy. The size of the physical infrastructure is reduced, thus leading to a smaller carbon footprint.
What’s more, uniFlow Online offers secure printing capabilities, ensuring documents are only printed when authorised employees identify themselves and authenticate their print jobs at the printer. This will prevent unnecessary wastage caused by the printing of unwanted documents.
Gain greater control over your company’s printing habits with cloud-based print management solutions offered by Canon. Click here to learn more about the features and benefits.
