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12 sustainabletimes 0870 903 9500
Here, Jeremy Spencer,
Marketing Manager
Toshiba, answers
readers’ questions
around the latest green
innovations in offce
equipment.
Businesses want to deal with other businesses that maintain a high ethical
stance. As an example, the Co-Op has made a commitment to render its
operations carbon neutral by offsetting its carbon through a programme of
international projects. It is likely that organisations such as these will demand
a similarly responsible stance from their suppliers.
Q. What are the latest trends and
innovations in green machines?
A. All manufacturers are reducing power
consumption of their machines,
particularly when they are in sleep
mode. Some machines use as little as
1Watt when in sleep mode. The use
of LED lamps instead of fuorescent
tubes is also a big breakthrough.
And there have also been some big
changes to machines’ paper drives
so that they can now more easily
handle recycled paper which, until
recently, was a problem for most
manufacturers.
Q. What green credentials or
accreditations should I look out
for?
A. The primary one is Energy Star. This
is the main accreditation in Europe
and USA and encompasses all the
best standards. Its strength is that it’s
not a static standard – it is revised
every 12-18 months and raises the
conformance levels continuously,
so in order to achieve the standard,
manufacturers are forced to innovate.
Q. Aren’t green machines more
expensive?
A. Independent research suggests that
70 per cent of people, when offered
a green alternative, will always take
it – providing the price differential
isn’t too large. It’s also a question of
responsibility – businesses generally
want to be able to demonstrate that
they are taking a responsible, green
approach. In the main, if prices are at
a sensible level and the green fgures
substantiated, it’s a win-win option.
Q. What are the latest working
methods that are encouraging
green use of machines – such as
powersave, cloud systems or other
working practices?
A. Powersave is fne as long as machines
warm up quickly, otherwise people
will just turn that facility off.
However, new fusing technology
development has meant this is now
possible. Double sided printing is an
obvious answer. The tendency where
possible is more to read on screen
nowadays, rather than print out, and
many organisations are optimising
their web content so it is easier to
understand the content rather than
producing hardcopy. However, we
do appreciate that a lot of people
still like to print information out,
so in that case we would always
recommend double sided printing.
Q. How can the use of consumables
or accessories improve the eco-
functions of equipment?
A. If using non-manufacturers toner, the
machines will need to be serviced
more often, without a doubt, and are
likely to become more unreliable, so
more visits from the service engineer
(adding to your carbon footprint),
and it will become more expensive
to run. These ‘bad’ toners also require
more heat in order to fuse correctly
onto the page, so the machine
will have to operate at a higher
temperature.
In terms of accessories, duplex is
a must. In addition, having a quality
scan function allows organisations
to distribute more electronic
documents, again reducing the
number of printed pages. This
has a signifcant impact as almost
50 per cent of a document’s carbon
footprint comes from the paper,
recycled or not.
www.toshiba.co.uk/imaging
Going green
is good
for business
In the UK around 20,000 organisations from both the private
and public sectors are affected by government initiatives to
reduce carbon emissions and global warming such as the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme and the more recent Carbon Reduction
Commitment Energy Effciency Scheme (CRC).