Boosting efficiency in the office is one of the simplest ways to cut waste and save money yet many UK companies are continuing to fail. Are you one of them? How efficient is your office? Are your lights left on over night and printer trays spilling over with wasted paper?

If the answer is yes then why not log on to our webchat where we’ll be giving advice on how you can boost your efficiency as a business and save the planet at the same time.

Believe it or not your office isn’t the only one to be battling with efficiency issues, especially when it comes to the environment. More than 8 out of 10 office workers have never received training on working equipment as basic as the printer meaning they waste many precious minutes trying to decide which buttons to press to get the results they are looking for. On an environmental level, 50% of office workers feel guilty about the amount of documents they print off and then throw away. Needless to say, this is just one area where there is room for improvement.

Our special guest speaker Penney Poyzer, eco-expert and presenter of BBC2's prime time show No Waste Like Home will be hosting a session designed to make your team more productive and enable you to make significant financial savings by implementing schemes such as the Brother’s “Print Smart Charter”. With all this in mind you could probably use a helping hand with keeping the office running as smoothly as possible so why not submit a question and revolutionise the way you work?

TV’s eco-expert Penney Poyzer and Mike Dinsdale of Brother joins us live online on Monday 4th February 2008 at 12.00pm to help save you money and the environment

H: Glen Thompsett, host
M: Mike Dinsdale, Brother
P: Penny Poyzer, TV eco expert

H: Hello and welcome to the Business Show, I'm Glen Thompsett, nice to have your company today. Now boosting efficiency in the office is one of the simplest ways to cut waste, but you'd be surprised – a lot of UK companies and firms are still not doing that. Bit of a checklist for you if you do work in the office – now do you go in first thing in the morning, are those lights still on, are those computer monitors still burning away with the screen saver dancing everywhere? Is the printer spewing out reams of paper? If that is the case then this program is for you. Today we have some great tips and advice on hopefully saving energy in your workplace. We have Mike Dinsdale from Brother Printers, he's with us today. They've come up with an interesting charter which we'll talk about very shortly, and also we have today Penny Poyzer, now Penny is a TV eco expert, welcome to both of you. We'll start with you Penny if we can, how do you educate office workers to be more eco friendly, because you know, come 5 o'clock they just want to go home, forget turning the lights off, forget turning the PCs off, there's a screen saver there, they go into stand by – what's the problem?

P: It's a massive problem, just for example ICT in the UK is responsible for 10% of our CO2 emissions, that's the same as aviation, so it is a huge problem, and management really has got to take the time to properly train their staff, because not only are they really really pumping out CO2 but of course they're costing firms a whole heap of money, so it's always got to start with the employees

H: But it's the money, training these people to be more eco-friendly is going to cost firms – they see as unnecessary money, surely?

P: Well some of the things are so basic, so absolutely basic, so for example you were talking about the screen saver, now people might automatically think if you've got a screen saver it's saving money. Unfortunately that's just not true, the screen saver doesn't save any money, so it's introducing a culture, and it might be that you incentivise your staff, you know why should they do it for nothing? But also explaining to people that the energy that you're using at work is exactly the same as the energy that you're using at home, and we have one planet, we have one set of resources, so we've got to educate people that you know good behaviour at home has to be matched by good behaviour at work

H: And at the end of the day you save money

P: Absolutely, any training program that a company institutes, they're going to get that back really really quickly in savings

H: Ok, so manufacturers, you're turning to manufacturers then to get onto the bandwagon and try and save money, try and be more eco-friendly. Mike Dinsdale of Brother Printers is with us today, Mike thanks for coming in. What are your company doing to jump on the bandwagon?

M: Well today we're talking about the launch of our Printsmart Charter, and the charter is basically a document, a 7-point plan that allows businesses to look at some really simple techniques, and some really simple tools that they can use to make the printing systems more efficient, reduce waste and save cost

H: Ok so the charter then, how long have you been working on this charter that's been launched today?

M: We've been – actually working on the charter that we've launched today, I think we've probably taken round about 6 months to put that together because we needed to back it up with a lot of research, but we've been working towards this now for 3 or 4 years, we've actually been actively promoting a very simple expedient which is something we call duplex printing, simply that means printing on both sides of the page. It's a crime to waste the other side of the page. And so the Printsmart Charter is a culmination of all of that work, and we're encouraging businesses to do that

H: So printing both sides of the paper, we've all seen printers that spew out and print just one side of an A4 / A3 whatever size paper it is – you're saying now that companies and firms should be printing on both sides to save money –

M: Yes

H: In terms of energy, what are talking about here?

M: The main embedded energy is actually in the paper itself, an organisation called the Energy Star organisation, which is American and European, they estimate that each sheet of A4 paper that's made from virgin stock uses around 17watts of power to produce one sheet, so if you don't print on the other side, every time you throw it away you're wasting 7.5 watts, now 7.5 watts of energy is a lot. To give you an analogy the 17 watts I talk about in that sheet is like running a 60 watt light bulb for 17 minutes. You just wouldn't imagine there's that much energy embedded in one sheet. So you know every time you throw a piece of paper away where one side hasn't been used, you're throwing energy away in the waste bin, and energy costs money

H: But Penny, it's educating people about this isn't it, actually telling people – turn that computer off at the end of the day, switch those lights off if you're the last person out. How do you physically get people into that mind set, because at the end of the day we're all very lazy, we just want to get off home and do our thing in the evening – it's educating people – how do you change their minds?

P: You need to have some good formal training, and it does mean that you need some champions within an organisation, and you know increasingly people are talking about the environment. If we were having this conversation 5 years ago it would be what's this funny old environment game? But of course you know everybody talks about it now, you can be at a bus stop, you can be on a train and people talk about green issues, so I think that we have got that level of awareness really building now, and simple things like just producing little stickers that can be produced on recycled paper that you stick on every monitor saying “switch it off”, you can have – you know – at the top and bottom of email messages “do you need to print this out?” – that's become a very very common message now. For example when it comes to using office machinery, I was talking about the wastefulness of ICT but you'd be amazed at the tiny proportion of people who are actually trained to use equipment properly, so for instance it might be – you were talking about the piece of paper, that it's reckoned that there's something like 300 million pieces of paper go through offices every day in the UK

H: That's incredible isn't it?

P: Enormous amount. So if it became standard that we printed everything double sided, that chops it down to 150, if we then say ok, print it up, print it 2 up on each page and double sided it, then you get it down to 75 million, so these are really really simple steps that make an enormous difference. Things like lighting, you know 17% at least of an organisation's energy bill will go towards lighting. Now by 2011 the government will be phasing out incandescent bulbs because they are so wasteful in terms of energy use and carbon dioxide production, so it makes an awful lot of sense for companies to invest a little bit of money to install low energy bulbs and also things like PIR which actually activates lights as you come in, so for the sake of a very small amount of investment, in not only educating your workforce but also putting in things that will help to save energy, the payback is achieved so quickly

H: I guess Mike if companies don't adhere to this eco-friendly energy-saving system, the government will start getting a little heavy-handed and I've no doubt will intervene will they?

M: Yes, I mean – the whole thing really, it's about an attitude, I mean the first thing I say to anybody that says well it's not convenient or you know we've been doing it like this for years, it's really why would you not want to do it, you know why would you not want to save on your electricity bill? Electricity bills in companies are large, we ourselves have worked with the Carbon Trust and Envirowise within our own operation, and we've taken 8% off our electricity bill in two years, and nobody's noticed the difference – it's not that we're colder or we're hotter, we've just done it by improving efficiency. Why would you not want to make your business more efficient? It's a crazy statement

H: I guess if there was a financial incentive to companies to get a bit of money from the government –

M: Absolutely

H: By winning you know a league table of whose saving what –

M: Absolutely

H: That might work

M: Absolutely and the government obviously – no one can doubt that there's a serious concern and anybody who monitors the incoming legislation can doubt that there is going to be something done about it, so our advice is start now, get ahead of the game, get this built into your business, make it part of the business mindset now, before the – well the government talk about incentives, but what – I mean in my language it's a disincentive when they start taxing it, and ultimately that's what we will have to do, because we have to reduce our CO2 emission, that is without – absolutely without doubt, but to get on with it now and do it voluntarily and it's so easy to do it – it really is. This is not rocket science but – it really is easy to do, so get on with it

P: I think one of the things to bear in mind is that government will work closely with big business because it's a lot easier to do, but what we have to bear in mind is that 99% of all the businesses in this country are actually small / medium enterprises, so you know that's a very big issue and they're employing half of the employable workforce in the country, so you know whilst it's great that government and you know organisations like the Carbon Trust will work with companies that have got – I think it's about 50,000 isn't it, the turnover is the minimum –

H: Ok

P: You know we need a lot more assistance. Now there's a lot of local authorities that are doing some great stuff with small to medium enterprises, but of course the thing that a single trader or somebody whose got 5 or 6 staff will say where can I get the time to go on a training course? So we've got to make it really simple, really accessible, and things like the charter that your company's bringing out, because it's simple and straightforward, that's how we need to get the messaging across

H: Ok. You're watching the Business Show, we're talking about saving money in the office, being more eco-friendly. Penny Poyzer, TV eco expert is with us, and also Mike Dinsdale from Brother Printers. It's an interactive webchat, fill in that little box at the bottom of the screen there, hit the submit button, your questions come through to us here in the studio, in fact Bill has just done just that, Bill thanks very much for getting in touch with us. He wants to know “I'm trying to get my bosses to implement a recycling scheme, which they seem reluctant to do due to costs of recycle pick-up. Who can I say is the best organisation to pick up waste for recycling?”

M: Ok. This is very much on a local basis, we don't know where Bill lives, so there's a number of approaches. First of all they could take the Printsmart Charter that we've been talking about by coming to our website – I think we're going to give the address out later. On the back of that we've included a large quantity of links, people that we've worked with over time, so you can use that for reference. But I would suggest, as we've already mentioned local councils, that that's the first place. Local councils are charged with managing the waste and business waste is the larger end of their particular problem, and they usually have a waste management officer and a recycling officer who will know what the best arrangements are for you locally. We obviously are a national company so we are members of national schemes, but for smaller businesses start with your local council

H: Ok

M: And the recommendations on our Printsmart Charter

H: Good advice there, alright – Tyra Lewis, we've got a lot of questions here so we're going to rattle through them as quickly as we can. Tyra Lewis has been in touch with us, she wants to know “I'm new to management” – one for you actually Penny – “how can I get my team working efficiently and how do you recommend structuring that all-important training?”

P: Well what a good question! I think it's fantastic because here's somebody who obviously wants to get it right, you know and they've got a statement to make. And obviously the other thing is that if her team is working efficiently then her budget spreadsheets are going to look good at the end of the year so it's kind of a win / win thing. I would say start off easy. Really discuss with your team what their feelings are about environmental issues, I think first and foremost before you hit people over the head with stuff, find out what they feel, you know it's really, really important to engage hearts and minds before you can really expect people to take actions, because that's how human beings work. So we then say ok, let's look at the issue of paper waste, start off with that one. You come out with some of the facts and figures that we've talked about today, because people don't appreciate what the problem is, you say “did you know that 10% of all the paper waste going to land fill in the UK comes from offices? That includes you and me

H: 10%?

P: 10% yes of all paper going to land fill waste is from our offices. 77 – you know there's tonnes and tonnes of stuff going from businesses, but we don't' always appreciate how much goes, so if we say to people you know, we are part of the problem, but let's be part of the solution – again incentivise your team members, come up with great ideas, maybe they get a wind-up radio or they get a set of – you know – low energy bulbs which cost virtually nothing, but you need to really, really engage your team

H: There needs to be an incentive for workforces to get into this really

M: Yes

P: Yes, absolutely and tie it in with what's happening at home, because it is all the same stuff you know

H: Yes, yes

P: Water, electricity – it's all the same stuff

H: Sorry, go on

M: I was going to say one tip that we could give you, in our experience if you ask somebody in an office how much paper they use, they don't know, but if you ask the purchasing department you buy, they can tell you. So if you work out how much paper you're buying, you can assume that's how much paper you're using – divide that by 2 and that's what you're going to save if you start printing on both sides of it

H: And I bet they can tell you, I bet individuals can tell you how much paper they get through at home on their own printers

M: They can because they have to buy it

H: Exactly. It's all about buying your own – now some absolutely stunning statistics here to just quickly whistle through – 86% of workers haven't been trained to use their office printer. 50% of workers feel guilty about the amount of paper they print out and then throw away. Only 6% of businesses regularly print on both sides of the paper, comes back to our early part of the program this, doesn't it? Only 1 in 5 of businesses surveyed recycled their toners, cartridges and printers – is that a common thing to recycle? The printers, the toners?

M: It should be. And manufacturers like ourselves, and we are actually not alone in this, all manufacturers that are responsible have recycling schemes. Our recycling scheme we promote heavily and is extremely transparent, you can get to that through our website – but it's really, really important. There's a lot of material, there's a lot of resource, and in our particular case, everything that comes back to our factory we actually crush it back to virgin plastic and we re-mould it, so we don't just kind of take it away, refill it and give you some kind of sub-standard refill, we actually take it back and the product that we will recycle from the manufactured material is exactly the same as a new product, but obviously we saved on the resource because we haven't gone back to the new material. So it's incredibly important that businesses cooperate with that, and it – all it takes is a phone call. Go ot our website, look at Brother Green, make a phone call and we'll be there for you

H: Ok, well we'll give website details at the end of this particular webchat today. Sean from Wembley says “I'm really prudent when it comes to printing things out, but I've no idea if the paper I'm printing on is recycled or not” – Penny this is for you I reckon – “how can I push this agenda, particularly at work?”

P: Well I guess this would again come back to your supplier department, you know go and talk to them. Again explain to them, the suppliers – your supply department may not know this – point out what the environmental benefits are of using even a product that's got a 50% recycle content, it's massive, and it isn't just the CO2 savings and the energy savings that we've been talking about, it also takes an enormous amount of water just to produce one ream of paper, so there's all these kind of hidden natural resources that are going into what we do, so I think the first thing is go and have a chat, say the difference in cost may be absolutely minimal, say to them, look – tell people that we need to be doing duplex printing, and they will see that it makes savings. As long as you can come up with a logical argument that makes sense, then invariably people will take it on board

M: Yes, I think so I mean again one tip that I would take from our procedure, within our procedure, we have what we call 5 Rs – one of those Rs is refuse. And by that we mean don't buy anything in the first place that isn't environmentally sound, so if you have a policy as a company not to buy stuff that's bad for the environment then immediately you're on a straight path because you can't do as much damage. You need to go to your supplier and look at the concept of recycled paper, and the problem actually is that it's so good today that you virtually can't tell the difference, which is a major benefit. So go to your supplier, talk about recycled content, don't immediately assume that 100% recycled is best because 100% recycled actually can use more energy to make. Something, I'm told by our paper suppliers, something around 60% is probably good, and just to go back to that energy figure, I said 17 watts per sheet for virgin, it's only 12 watts for recycled, so you save 5 watts per sheet straight away

H: That's amazing, just for one piece of paper?

M: Yes, because recycled paper doesn't start with a tree somewhere in some inaccessible part of the world, it starts with pulp, recaptured waste which is local to where it's going to be pulped, so it saves a huge amount of energy. 5 watts per sheet

H: Putting a lot of emphasis on paper, and the recycling of your printers, surely there's a broader look on the whole thing as well, Tyra whose written in to us just now, she's written in again – thanks very much Tyra – she wants to know “I think we're quite efficient at work, we recycle, we turn off all the lights and the PCs at the end of the day, but what are the extra things you can put in place beyond the obvious? We all know about the PCs, the paper, the printer

P: Well one of the things we could look at is actually water which we haven't spoken a great deal about. Now if you've got an office with a lot of employees, they're going to the loo a lot and over a third of the water costs of the company will literally be on flushing the loo, so you can have the jolly old phrase, if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down, which is a cracking one

H: I'll make a note of that, yes

P: Yes Ken Livingstone, one of his favourite phrases. I'm sure he stole it from me, but one of the simple things you can do, you can get hold of things called Saver Flush which is literally just a sachet with crystals, and you –

H: Pop it in the siston?

P: That's right you just pop it in the siston, it expands and it immediately displaces a litre of water, so if you've got 100 employees going maybe 4 or 5 times a day, you can start to see how much that stacks up, and these things don't cost anything. So that's another thing to look at. Things like bottled water, now I'm afraid I have an absolute bee in my bonnet about bottled water, because if you imagine one of these big, blue containers – has to go backwards and forwards to the supplier, lots and lots of embodied carbon. Now the UK is blessed with some of the best water quality in the world, and if it's got a slight taste then have filter jugs or install an under-the-sink mechanism, so again that's another way of doing it. Plastic cups, why do we have plastic cups? Encourage people to bring their own mugs

H: Bring their own mugs in

P: Really really simple, and just rinse them out. There's lots and lots of really, really simple stuff, and again I would say to people – especially with Tyra who obviously they're already thinking about this, is just pull together more ideas, and just do three steps a month, I always say to people any more than three steps, difficult to get your head around, but 3 steps you can implement masses of stuff

H: Ok, we're almost out of time, just very, very quickly, you've given us some great tips there, what would your top tips be though – Penny your top tips?

P: Well I think the first and instant one would have to be –

M: Take the Printsmart

P: Print both sides and look at the Printsmart Charter because that's a really simple way. Definitely switch off PCs and monitors, even if you're leaving the room for 10 minutes, switch your monitor off, because they take an enormous amount of energy. Switch lights off. Make sure that you're not using too much amounts of water, and generally become conscious consumers rather than unconscious wasters, and engage the workforce

H: Ok, and just very quickly again from you Mike, the Printsmart Charter – in a nutshell, what's it all about today?

M: The Printsmart Charter is a simple guide that helps people who are office based get the maximum efficiency from their office products, reduce waste and thereby reduce cost

H: Ok, lovely sir. Penny Poyzer, TV's eco expert and Mike Dinsdale from Brother Printers, thanks very much for joining us on the Business Show today

P: Thank you

H: If you'd like more advice then just go to www.brother.co.uk/printsmart for more advice on how you can save money in the office. From all of us here, thanks for joining us, bye bye