How saving paper is benefitting the environment and our customers
At Capital Space we’re always looking for ways to reduce our environmental impact, which is why we’re delighted that our direct carbon emissions for signing documents were down 81% in 2023 compared with 2022, as were our use of water and wood. The savings are as a result of introducing electronic signing for our contracts for our offices, workshops and studios.
Environmental savings from e-signing of business accommodation contracts
In 2021, we introduced DocuSign across our centres as we were aware of the high paper consumption involved in our administration processes. Going paperless has so far saved us 11,312 pages of paper, and as a consequence, reduced our direct carbon footprint. Matt Roberts, Centre Manager of
Milton Keynes Business Centre and our DocuSign Administrator told us, “We are so pleased with the savings seen across our business centres, as we strive to be an environmentally responsible company.”
The lifecycle of a piece of paper is incredibly damaging to the environment and the paper industry causes the most pollution globally as a result of the hazardous chemicals expelled in its wastewater. Furthermore, its production uses up extraordinary amounts of water, a finite resource: one piece of A4 paper requires 10 litres of water . The destruction of forests, as trees are cut down for paper, significantly reduces biodiversity, soil quality, carbon sequestration and, as a result, contributes to climate change. Therefore, by trying to use as little paper as possible within our organisation, we hope we can make a small contribution towards being more environmentally friendly.
The benefits of e-signing for our business accommodation customers
As we have gradually integrated DocuSign into the way Capital Space operates and liaises with our customers, our reduction in waste and emissions has improved in line with our reduction in paper consumption. We saw an 80% reduction in carbon emissions and both water and wood consumption in 2023 compared with 2022; in 2022 we emitted 1,625lb less carbon and used 2,039 fewer gallons of water and 692lb less wood to meet our paper requirements compared to 2021.
The impact of this is not only supports our mission to go greener, but our customers’ ESG goals too, with the added bonus that processes have become quicker and more convenient by cutting out paper. We now offer our clients a more efficient service when it comes to signing up, verifying ID’s and contract management. As online document management can be done remotely, in real time and with the ability for data to be saved and copied across varying forms, our customers are no longer snowed under with forms and can focus on running their businesses.
How the environmental savings of e-signing are calculated
We have generated statistics to demonstrate the resources and emissions we have saved as a result of reducing our paper consumption by looking at three factors (assuming that each recipient of a document would print it once, on average, and that the paper used would contain 10% recycled content):
- Number of envelopes sent
- Number of pages per envelope
- Number of recipients per envelope
This gives us an informal representation of how using DocuSign has helped in our mission to be an environmentally conscious company, which our customers are proud to be partnered with. DocuSign is just one aspect of how we trying to reduce our environmental impact and we are constantly innovating how we operate to ensure we are doing all we can.
If you’re looking for business accommodation to support your ESG objectives, get in touch
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