Does Digital Transformation Reduce Waste?
Digital transformation is the change to use technology to replace or enhance business processes, operations, and customer experiences. It often involves switching analogue tools and manual processes for online and digital alternatives. Many digital transformations are being implemented by businesses to reduce waste through various means.
It’s important for businesses of all sizes, industries, and locations to try and reduce how much waste they produce. This helps protect the environment and lowers waste management costs. Digital transformation is regularly viewed as an effective waste reduction strategy as it involves moving things online with less physical reliance.
Many businesses are shifting to more digitised processes, often to go paperless and cut back on how much waste paper they produce. However, various side effects lead to companies inadvertently generating other types of waste. Here we explore whether digital transformation helps or harms ways to reduce waste.
Cutting back on paper waste
One of the biggest positive impacts of digital transformation is the reduction in paper use and waste. Moving to digital documents rather than physical paper copies means offices across the world create much less waste paper. Fewer trees are cut down and less water and energy are required to produce as much paper.
Going paperless is a common waste reduction strategy for many businesses. Research has shown it has financial benefits too, as 59% of UK businesses that went paperless reported a full return on investment in less than 12 months, while 84% achieved this in less than 18 months.
These are some common examples of how digital transformation is helping different businesses reduce their paper waste production:
- Healthcare records and legal documents – stored online, which requires no paper and cardboard files
- Submitting forms – online applications for jobs and government services reduce physical paper use
- Menus in restaurants – many have QR codes on tables to scan rather than paper menus
- Event ticketing – mobile and digital tickets replace physical paper ones
- Employee training – printed manuals replaced by online training videos and courses
- Product catalogues and brochures – replaced by digital and online versions
- Flyers and printed adverts – social media advertising and email marketing often used instead of physical paper flyers and posters
Stamping out printer ink waste
A consequence of reduced paper use by many businesses is a reduction in printing. Offices now store most documents online or in the cloud, which means significantly less printing done at work. The days of the average office worker using 10,000 sheets of printed copy paper a year are behind us.
Screen advertising also means there are fewer printed posters around towns and cities. This all results in businesses not printing as many materials and creating less waste ink cartridges and toners, which can be challenging to recycle. Companies may require fewer printers onsite too, leading to less e-waste.
As digital transformation could see fewer printers in offices in the future it also reduces the type of hazardous waste from printer ink and cartridges. While many ink cartridges can be refilled, plenty are disposed of or replaced. Improper disposal can harm the environment, so creating less printer-related waste should have a positive impact.
Unwrapping less packaging waste
Another side effect of the modern digital world is the impact it has on our daily habits outside the workplace. Digital transformation has made it possible for more people to work from home, whether on a hybrid model or fully remote. This could inadvertently reduce packaging waste in a few ways.
The main impact is on food and drink packaging. As more people work from home, fewer are likely to buy coffee in disposable cups on their commute and lunch breaks. While plenty of coffee shops offer hot drinks in recyclable and biodegradable cups, digital transformation is still helping cut back on such waste.
The same is true for workers and their lunches. With more people working from home, it generally means fewer are buying lunch meals from supermarkets and individually wrapped snacks. These are heavily packaged items designed for convenience. Lots of people working from home have the time and space to prepare their own lunches and avoid creating additional packaging waste.
Culling carbon emissions
Many businesses have shifted to hold meetings with clients, prospects, and internal teams and stakeholders over Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams. Much of this happened during the COVID-19 pandemic but has continued afterwards alongside other digital transformations. It’s replaced the traditional travelling to meetings across the UK and the wider world.
Online meetings have saved businesses in all industries plenty of money by significantly cutting travel costs. It’s also helped reduce the carbon footprint for lots of companies as employees and clients take fewer flights, trains, and car journeys to meet up. This has hugely reduced direct and indirect energy and fuel usage.
Escalating e-waste
There are various great ways that digital transformation is helping reduce waste. However, the main consequence of this shift to more digital processes is that it’s leading to significant growth in one waste stream – e-waste or waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
Digital transformation drives a demand for electronic products. Businesses may use fewer printers and photocopiers but there’s a greater reliance on computers, laptops, tablets, and many other electronic goods. Many of these experience regular upgrades and updates as devices become obsolete quicker and need replacing more regularly, which leads to more e-waste.
It also results in greater levels of battery waste – from those powering mobile phones to lithium-ion batteries from laptops. Recycling e-waste and batteries is possible but more challenging than the likes of paper due to the many materials electrical products contain. Research and developments into recycling e-waste are ongoing, with the Royal Mint recently starting to process e-waste to extract gold from old electronics.
While digital transformation has seen a fall in paper waste creation it has generally been offset by more e-waste, which is trickier to recycle. At Business Waste we can help businesses of any industry across the UK recycle your WEEE – call 0800 211 8390 or contact us online today for a free quote.
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