 - Penrith City Council. Image supplied by Council.
Printers are often associated with an opportunity to reduce paper use and ensure that waste paper is appropriately recycled. However Penrith City Council has demonstrated that they also offer a simple way to reduce Council’s operational energy use, long-term operating costs and associated greenhouse gas emissions.
Effective printing is integral to the operational efficiency of any office environment and no doubt many of us have experienced the repercussions of temperamental equipment.
Council’s project also delivers additional benefits that are not as easily quantified but valuable to the organisation nonetheless. This can include less time and stress associated with printing, less office clutter, reduced paper wastage and better quality outputs.
Penrith City Council recognised an opportunity to improve the printing services and efficiency for its childcare centres and administrative buildings. An accumulation of printers over time had created a range of inefficiencies that required streamlining.
The overall objective of the project was to optimise printing efficiencies throughout Council, minimising costs and associated greenhouse gas emissions.
The project was conducted over several months enabling project managers to establish a clear understanding of Council’s current and future printing needs, analyse the effectiveness of existing services and make recommendations to rationalise and improve these services.
The process involved the following key steps: - Conduct an inventory of all of the existing internal printers, their capabilities, energy consumption and costs associated with their operation.
- Implement printing controls that will enable the ongoing monitoring and management of printing activities, such as determining printing volumes and officer printing needs.
- Review all external printing services and associated costs.
- Carry out market research and evaluation to determine best practice technology, including highest energy star rating equipment.
- Review staff printing needs and identify opportunities for improving current services.
- Investigate and report on alternate solutions to print management such as centralised printing and multifunction devices (MFD) (e.g. copier/printer/fax/scanner).
- Develop recommendations for alternative printing technology and structure that meets current and future needs while reducing operational costs, maximising the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and other associated operational and environmental benefits.
 - A council employee reviews a print job from his local print service.
The following key issues were uncovered during the inventory and monitoring period: - Existing MFDs were aged technology, uneconomical and provided a low level of service.
- The main print room printers were unreliable, old technology and demonstrated a poor level of service.
- The fleet of small laser printers was extremely large – 109 units. A number of units were old and in need of replacement.
- Many units lacked print management controls such as data reporting and energy saver modes.
- Inefficient toner use led to high annual spending on toner cartridges.
- There was a high level of office devices in childcare centres – 108.
- Spending on external printing services was high.
- A number of devices being used to service one area could be replaced with a single, better quality, multifunction device.
As a result of the audit Council was able to identify key issues and opportunities and implement a range of actions, which included: - Replacing all existing MFDs and downsizing the fleet of small printers, which resulted in an annual saving of over $90k.
- Recycling all unusable printers.
- Creating a standardised purchasing policy for the printing fleet, which resulted in reduced costs and increased operational efficiency. The policy also mandates that only refillable and recyclable print cartridges are to be purchased.
- Activating print management controls such as energy saving and reporting.
- Expanding the print room capability, resulting in a further saving of $80,000.
- Replacing all office devices at childcare centres with MFDs, a cost neutral action.
- Implementing centralised control of all external printing requests.
The table below provides a summary of the reductions achieved by implementing the actions detailed above.
 - Table 1: Summary of the reduction achieved at Council from replacing all existing MFDs and downsizing small printer fleet
 - Graph 1: Annual printing costs for Penrith City Council
The combined results of these actions will save approximately 556 tonnes of CO2e over a 10-year period or about 56 tonnes per annum. These savings are equivalent to taking 129 cars off the road or eliminating the emissions generated from heating and cooling 371 average Australian homes for a year.
The graph to the right shows the added benefit of reduced costs associated with meeting Council’s printing service needs for the childcare centres and administrative buildings.
Ensuring energy efficiency and long-term operating costs are considered in purchasing decisions remains a high priority at Penrith City Council.
With assistance from ICLEI Oceania and the CCP Sustainable Purchasing (formerly Greenhouse Purchasing) Project framework, (Gap Analysis and Action Plan), Penrith City Council have developed a Sustainable Purchasing Supplier Policy that aims to ensure staff prioritise the purchasing of energy efficient products.
Cross-council training is scheduled to raise awareness of the Sustainable Purchasing Supplier Policy and increase the adoption of sustainable purchasing practice at Penrith. This is an important step to ensure sustainable purchasing is the new ‘business as usual’ across Council.
Krystie Race
Sustainability Research Planner
Ph: +61 (0)2 4732 7777
Penrith City Council website
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