The Coming Power to “Cancel” the use of Paper Drawings
Everyone is in the data management business but not everyone realizes it yet. Also, every business has to respond to the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) movement, but even fewer realize it.
One day, using paper will be deemed as old fashioned as using parchments and ink. As this evolution rolls on, it will result in laughter at and mocking of, the people who are slow to change.
However, there will come a moment, sooner than you think, when the ESG movement develops the power, via peer pressure and cultural change, to “cancel” firms that continue to use and waste paper. Building design, construction and facilities management firms are some of the worst offenders with their prolific use of paper drawings and paper information assets.
So what is the scale of the environmental issue with paper use?
- Paper waste accounts for up to 40% of total waste in the United States, which adds up to 71.6 million tons of paper waste per year in the United States alone!
- The average business document is copied 19 times and over 81 billion sheets of paper are copied each month.
- There are over 4 trillion paper documents in North America growing at a rate of 22% each year.
- Over $5 billion each year is wasted on printed materials that become obsolete before they are ever used.
- For every 10 printed pages, only 1 is ever consulted.
- If the property industry moved 1 million tons of virgin fiber paper to 100% recycled it would be the equivalent of taking 248,000 cars off the road.
- What would we save if we went 100% digital?
- One typical set of Architectural plus MEP drawings & O&M Manuals is approximately equivalent to:
- 23 Kg’s of total toner ink to landfill
- 5 CO2e Tonnes
- 1 passenger car off the road for 1 year
- 10 logged trees
Paper production use, and waste consumes:
- Water
- Energy
- Human capital
Paper production use, and waste generates:
- Green House Gases
- Air and water pollution
- Wasted time
The loss of worldwide forests and the bio-diverse habitats they provide is a catastrophe that in the social media age is becoming hard to ignore. The depletion of worldwide forests for paper production when we already have digital solutions that are even better than paper is frankly, a crime against all of us.
Why are you still using paper drawings ? Covert your paper drawings to digital and get a digital drawing management strategy from The Drawing Specialists.
#drawings #echoknowsyourbuilding #drawingsfound
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