To avoid sharing printed copies of materials, follow these best practices for paperless meetings created by the IT Sustainability Initiative and the UCIO Council.
- Prepare ahead of time by adding notes and presentation materials as attachments to your meeting invitation – let attendees know they can access them electronically and hard copies will not be provided. Make use of cloud-based storage solutions (such as Google Drive) to easily share documents.
- Use a projector / laptop / electronic display to display the agenda and other related meeting documents.
- Consider holding a remote meeting via web conference, using NYU Zoom.
- Encourage meeting attendees to take notes on their laptop or another electronic device to further reduce paper waste.
- Scan paper handouts and email meeting notes to participants after the meeting.
- Use an electronic signature service (such as DocuSign).
If you have to print, #ThinkBeforeYouPrint:
- Only print the pages you need.
- Use an ink-saving font like Courier, Century Gothic, or Brush Script.
- Reduce margins and font size to waste less space on a page.
- Set printers to print in black and white by default (color toner has a greater cost and environmental impact).
- Set printers to print and copy in ‘duplex’ or double-sided mode by default.
- Use print preview to avoid printing unnecessary pages.
- Print multiple slides per page when printing PowerPoints.
- Use recycled toner and recycle cartridges when empty.