Written by Fleur Doidge

CRN, 09 Jan 2009

Every printer vendor these days claims to be more environmentally friendly than its rivals.

Print vendors are aware of the wasteful reputation of their technologies and for years have been fielding claims about the verdancy of their products and solutions.

Resellers must distinguish between vendor claims to provide the best option for customers, even if the focus shifts to cutting costs rather than shrinking carbon footprints.

Marcus Harvey, channel sales director at Lexmark, said that helping customers reduce the amount of printing overall is bound to cut costs.

“The paper used during printing causes 80 per cent of a laser printer’s environmental impact,” he said.

Different technologies can help with this. Lexmark printers have a secure print function so staff must enter a PIN to enable it to print out.

“Users can consider if a document needs to be printed and reduce the number of pages thrown away,” said Harvey.

“European employees [in a Lexmark survey] admitted that one page in every six is printed unnecessarily.”

Phil Jones, sales and marketing director at Brother, said encouraging the use of features such as duplex printing also reduces paper use, as does deploying print management software and solutions to monitor and manage printing centrally across an entire organisation.

Features set

Harvey said other features such as draft mode, on-screen previews and scan-to-email can also save paper. And users can adopt technologies that minimise the energy and resource cost of the printing they cannot avoid.

“Lexmark offers high-yield cartridges on all machines and a designated recycling scheme, which allows customers to return empty cartridges to Lexmark free,” he said.

Jones said that printers with separate drum and toner mechanisms also help minimise toner waste.

Brother also has dealer and end-user recycling schemes for cartridges and drums. “We have made major investments to ensure all our printers, multifunction machines, label printers and sewing machines use less energy, last longer and can be recycled easily,” said Jones.

James Kight, managing director of distributor Printerland, said some brands may prove greener for specific organisations’ needs, depending on their feature mix. Schools, for instance, need to keep costs down.

Printerland stocks 13 brands of printer. “All manufacturers now are taking [the need to be environmentally friendly] seriously,” he said. “It is all about responsible printing.”

Some studies have indicated that for every 100,000 printed pages, some 2.5kg of landfill are generated. And each laser printer itself takes up some 70kg of space when disposed of.

Kight maintained that customers will pay more for the right printer for their needs if there is also a strong green argument.

Green credentials

Of the brands Printerland stocks, the ones that have especially convincing green claims in Kight’s view include Lexmark, Xerox and Ricoh.

“Ricoh has a very good offering with its wax-based print technology,” he said. “Although Xerox’s solid ink is compelling too. Both companies have unique propositions.”

Ricoh’s gel-based GelSprinters are said to emit less ozone and dust than usual. They also have a mode that reduces the amount of coloured ink used per page.

Xerox’s solid resin-based ink needs no plastic cartridge to contain it, saving on waste.

But it is not all about technology, Kight maintained, with some vendors helping customers reduce waste in other ways. Lexmark helped a bank adopt improved print management, bringing that company’s cartridge use from 57,000 a year down to 45,600 by re-education.

Jones added that resellers should check supplier environmental credentials. “Third-party credentials such as the rigorous ISO14001:2004 standard for environmental management mean ‘green’ claims are not just a lot of hot air,” he said.

Zoe McMahon, environmental strategy manager at HP, also stressed the importance of labelling and tools such as carbon footprint calculators. “HP includes HP Eco Highlights Labels that clearly explain the environmental attributes of a product, tool or service,” she said.

“For enterprise customers, we provide HP Eco Printing Assessments that benchmark printing and provide a plan to reduce costs and improve environmental standards.” However, McMahon added that customers, partners and manufacturers need to team up to ensure consistent environmental labelling.

“This needs to be a cross-industry effort to ensure customers can accurately and independently assess the environmental benefits of products and services,” she said.

Neither Xerox nor Canon were available for comment as CRN went to press.