Change: How to Get Others to Reduce Paper

This month, we have suggested that you make 5 specific types of changes in your organization to reduce paper. While you may be ready to make some of these changes, I am betting that others in your office aren't as willing to change.

Steve Rosenbaum has a post about Getting Others to Change that was helpful to me. He mentioned the work of Dr. Mitchell Kusy  who gives seminars on organizational change (PDF). They both discuss the idea that while you have gone through a decision-making process and decided to change and how you are willing to change, others around you have not gone through the same process and therefore may be resistant. They suggest that opening up the conversation to help educate others and letting them participate — while time consuming — will have better results at getting you the buy-in you need to succeed.

Here is a brief, if not simplistic outline:

• Bring people along by opening the discussion
• Do not shame people – this will backfire on you
• Explain the environmental and cost savings
• Pick one change as a place to start
  
• Report back on the impact

For those people who love the feel of paper and resist sweeping change, start small. All of the following changes will reduce the waste and probably save you money:

• Help them change their default margins on documents
• Set printers to duplex (print double-sided) automatically
• Use a utility like GreenPrint, FinePrint or AdBlock Plus to help reduce printing
• Suggest printing more than one page per sheet or multi-up printing
• Use electronic faxes that won't print every page that arrives, especially cover sheets.
• Use recycled content paper

Good luck with your efforts and please let us know how it is going. You can email us directly at YourTips AT techsoup.org or post a comment or question to the discussion in our forums.