On this 40th anniversary of Earth Day, more people – and businesses – than ever are searching for ways to get actively involved and reduce their carbon footprint. The people of Planet Earth have come a long ways in 40 years, but we are all still learning new ways to go further in our environmental efforts.

We’ve seen the rise in environmental awareness here at ColumbiaSoft. Each year, more and more companies are asking about ways to reduce their use of paper and go paperless. Electronic document management is of course, by its nature, a paperless alternative. But it hasn’t always been the case that so many considered the paperless way for its environmentally sustainable benefits. Mostly it was financial reasons, like reducing the risk of lost information, improving the productivity of business operations, or saving money by reducing the cost of storage, that largely pre-dated the green considerations.

The green benefit has given us all new reason to consider ideas, old and new, that can benefit business and the environment. And, like document management, there’s no shortage of cool ways to green your business. Today’s is a good time to take a few minutes to consider them… and here’s a short list to get started:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/50-ways-to-green-your-business.html

http://www.cio.com/article/591668/Green_Tech_and_Gadgets_for_Earth_Day

http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/environmentbiz/a/envirfriend1.htm

http://www.earthday.org/

http://smallbusiness.intuit.com/blog/where-small-is-now/2009/09/five-simple-ways-to-green-your-business.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/11-really-simple-ways-to-go-green-at-your-office-and-save-money-too-2010-4#only-print-when-absolutely-necessary-1

http://www.columbiasoftconnect.com/flash/calculators/treesaver/homepage/index.html

In an age where as many as half of us spend two hours or more per day just looking for the information we need to do our jobs… anything that speeds our interaction with knowledge adds up to big gains in efficiency. Electronic document storage is one way to narrow the gap, in a big way. This is because documents stored electronically can be filed, searched and retrieved instantly.

We covered this topic in a webinar today on electronic document storage. 

In the recording, you’ll see that we touched on other areas of document storage as well. From accessibility to information for people outside the office who are traveling, working at home, or at satellite offices; to logging, and how when documents are accessed, changed, or approved, audit logs can capture a record of the activity; to even business continuity and how electronic document storage improves recovery planning.