Sustainable Printing: How Businesses Save Paper, Energy and CO₂

An average office worker prints around 10,000 pages per year. Producing one tonne of paper requires 17 trees, 26,000 litres of water and approximately 10,000 kWh of energy. Each printed page generates 5 to 10 grams of CO₂. And up to 30% of all print jobs are never collected.

These figures make clear: printing has a significant environmental footprint. At the same time, they represent enormous optimisation potential. Organisations that actively manage their printing behaviour can reduce paper consumption by 20 to 30% without any restrictions in daily work. This not only saves costs but also provides measurable metrics for ESG reports and sustainability strategies.

This article shows which measures have the greatest impact and how print statistics can be used as sustainability KPIs.

Printing by the Numbers: The Environmental Footprint

Why print optimisation is a lever for sustainability

Metric	Value	Context
Print volume per employee	~10,000 pages/year	Average in office environments
Uncollected prints	20-30%	According to Quocirca and Gartner
CO₂ per page	5-10 g	Paper, toner, electricity
Trees per tonne of paper	17 trees	Virgin fibre paper
Water per tonne of paper	26,000 litres	Production and processing
Savings potential	15-30%	Through print management software

For a company with 200 employees, this means: 2 million pages per year, of which 400,000 to 600,000 are forgotten or unnecessary printouts. That equates to 2 to 3 tonnes of paper, 34 to 51 trees and 2 to 6 tonnes of CO₂ that can be saved.

5 Measures for Sustainable Printing

Concrete steps with measurable impact

1. Implement Follow-Me Printing

Follow-me printing is the most effective single measure for sustainable printing. Print jobs are only released after personal authentication at the printer. Uncollected jobs are automatically deleted after a defined period. Studies show: follow-me printing reduces print volume by 15 to 30% by eliminating forgotten and impulsively sent print jobs.

2. Enable Duplex as Default

Double-sided printing halves paper consumption at a stroke. At 10,000 pages per employee per year, duplex saves 5,000 sheets — approximately 25 kg of paper per person. For a company with 200 employees, that is 5 tonnes less paper per year, equivalent to 85 trees.

3. Set Black-and-White as Default

Colour printing consumes more toner and energy than black-and-white. When black-and-white is set as default, the colour share typically drops by 30 to 50%. This saves not only toner but also the energy for colour toner processing and reduces cartridge consumption.

4. Create Print Quotas and Awareness

Transparency about individual print consumption changes behaviour. When employees or departments see how much they print and what it costs, volume typically drops by a further 10 to 15%. Print quotas need not be restrictive — often the information alone is enough to prompt a rethink.

5. Digital Workflows Instead of Printouts

The most sustainable print is the one that never happens. Digital signatures, online forms, document management systems and collaboration tools fundamentally reduce the need for paper printouts. Print management software provides the data to identify which print tasks can be digitised.

Print Statistics as ESG KPIs

How print data feeds into sustainability reports

With the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), an increasing number of companies must report on their sustainability performance. Print statistics provide concrete, measurable metrics that can feed directly into ESG reports:

Paper consumption: Total consumption in sheets and tonnes, trends across quarters and years.
Duplex rate: Proportion of double-sided pages as an efficiency indicator.
Saved pages: Uncollected jobs deleted through follow-me printing.
CO₂ equivalent: Calculation of saved CO₂ emissions based on reduced print volume.
Resource savings: Conversion into saved trees, water and energy.

Example: A company with 200 employees that reduces its print volume by 40% through follow-me printing and duplex saves approximately 800,000 pages, 4 tonnes of paper, 68 trees and 4 to 8 tonnes of CO₂ per year. These figures are concrete, measurable and reportable.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to the most important questions about sustainable printing

How much CO₂ does a printed page produce?

A printed A4 page produces an average of 5 to 10 grams of CO₂, depending on paper type, printer type and energy source. At a print volume of 10,000 pages per employee per year, that equates to 50 to 100 kilograms of CO₂ per person. In a company with 200 employees, that is 10 to 20 tonnes of CO₂ annually from printing alone.

How much paper does follow-me printing save?

Follow-me printing typically reduces print volume by 15 to 30 per cent. The main effect comes from eliminating forgotten print jobs, which account for up to 30 per cent of all printouts. For a company with 200 employees and 2 million pages per year, this means savings of 300,000 to 600,000 pages annually.

Can print statistics be used for ESG reporting?

Yes, print statistics provide concrete, measurable metrics for ESG reports: paper consumption in sheets and tonnes, trees saved through duplex and print reduction, CO₂ savings from fewer print jobs and energy savings from an optimised printer fleet. This data can feed directly into sustainability reports following GRI, CSRD or other standards.

Sustainable Printing in Business