How Document Scanners Help Businesses Meet Sustainability Goals

Reduce waste and resource consumption by digitizing paper records and workflows.

Environmental sustainability has become an important focus of business planning and operations worldwide.

According to results from a 2020 survey by KPMG, 96% of the largest 250 companies in the world (the G250) now report on their sustainability performance using a variety of metrics. The movement toward more socially and ecologically mindful business has even spawned a set of corporate investment guidelines known as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria.

Companies are becoming more transparent with regard to sustainable and socially responsible practices, and guidelines like ESG make it easier for stakeholders and investors to evaluate a company’s impact on the world. ESG and other sustainability programs promote opportunities to make specific technology decisions that can go a long way toward meeting corporate sustainability goals.

Document scanners play an important role in these efforts.

For example, by incorporating document scanners into business workflows, companies can significantly reduce paper usage and waste. When hard copy documents are scanned, the new digital format can be easily distributed to others; it’s no longer necessary to make paper copies to guarantee access to information already in print.

In addition, reducing the need to print and copy paper documents saves a significant amount of energy, and using less ink and toner provides a huge benefit in terms of financial and environmental costs. It’s also important that business leaders choose sustainably manufactured scanners and follow responsible end-of-life recycling practices for their hardware.

Reduce Paper and Printing Supply Usage

Paper takes a major toll on the environment—not just in the amount of lumber cut down every year, but also in the staggering amount of energy it takes to process wood for retail and later break it down after it has been discarded. In 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the largest component of municipal solid waste was paper and cardboard, approximately a fourth of the total material reported.

The EPA also notes that approximately 375 million toner and ink cartridges are discarded and sent to landfills each year. This is especially harmful to the environment because cartridges are made of hard plastics and fortified with heavy metals. Also, ink and toner contain chemicals that are known to be hazardous when they seep into soil. Any effort to reduce the usage of these materials provides a measurable environmental benefit.

Going paperless also saves companies a lot of money, and it helps keep business operations secure, efficient, and organized.

Reduce Energy Consumption

Making the shift to paperless workflows significantly reduces electricity usage and costs over time. It doesn’t take nearly as much energy to keep a computer running as it does to output documents from a printer.

According to the Energy Use Calculator, a typical inkjet printer requires about 30 to 50 watts of power during printing, and 3 to 5 watts in standby mode. However, businesses typically use heavy-duty printers and large multi function devices, which use about 300 to 500 watts of power while printing, and 30 to 50 watts in standby mode.

Even when an office printer isn’t in use, it still draws energy. And because businesses typically create several copies of certain documents, a large amount of electricity is spent for the same document. This inefficiency can be eliminated by going paperless and using scanners to digitize important corporate documents.

How Scanners from Kodak Alaris Help Improve Corporate Sustainability

It’s important to choose document scanners and other products from companies that value corporate responsibility and that make environmentally conscious decisions. In 2019, Kodak Alaris completed a progress review of a 5-Year Environmental Plan that started in 2015. Our achievements include high levels of EPEAT® certification across our product line.

EPEAT and Energy Star-Certified Scanners

For all of our document scanners and services, we use sustainable and/or recycled materials, and our products are Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT®) certified and Energy Star®-certified. By choosing Kodak Alaris for your document scanning, you’ll always know you’re making an environmentally responsible decision.

EPEAT is a worldwide rating system managed by the Green Electronics Council that acknowledges the environmental performance and full lifecycle of electronic products, from the time of their design and production to their energy use and recycling.

The EPEAT criteria ranks in terms of Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Kodak Alaris has a total of 33 EPEAT-registered scanners, with 100% meeting the Silver criteria as of 2019 and 12 scanners meeting the Gold standard as of 2021. This is more than any other manufacturer in the industry.

Follow Responsible End-of-Life Cycle Practices

Making sustainable decisions doesn’t stop when your equipment is out of date or non-functional. Implementing responsible end-of-life (EOL) practices for hardware is critical to maintaining a healthy environment. Kodak Alaris designs sustainable products to help our customers pursue greener ways of doing business and inspire other companies in the industry to do the same.

Eco-friendly waste management for equipment, batteries, and packaging is a high priority. Kodak Alaris is compliant with laws in both Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS), which originated in the European Union and are legislatively linked.

To learn more about how we handle equipment, batteries, and packaging, please visit our waste management page.

Whether you represent a government organization or a business, or if you’re looking for high-performance scanners for your own use, you can be assured that Kodak Alaris prioritizes environmentally responsible product management to help every individual and organization reach their sustainability goals.

For more information on making sustainable business decisions and how Kodak Alaris can help, contact us using the following information or by completing the form below.

Service and support: 1-800-525-6325
Sales inquiries: 1-800-944-6171
Email: Contact-Us@kodakalaris.com

S3000 Series Scanner

S3100 Scanner

100ppm | 300 Sheet ADF
  • Compact and powerful
  • USB and wired Ethernet
  • Surepath™ intelligent document feed technology
  • Dual Light Illumination (DLI)
S3000 Series Scanner

S3100f Scanner

100ppm | 300 Sheet ADF
  • Versatile and powerful
  • USB and wired Ethernet
  • Surepath™ intelligent document feed technology
  • Integrated A4 flatbed
Kodak S3120 Scanner

S3120 Scanner

  • Up to 120 ppm color/ bw, A3 scanner
  • USB and Ethernet-enabled
  • Up to 35,000 pages per day

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