Best Practices for Paperless Meetings

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.