Sustainable Practices in Education
Environmental sustainability is an important topic for schools in Australia. Students want to learn about their environment and what they can do to protect and enhance it, so schools not only teach environmental sustainability in the classroom, but many also run practical projects, such as waste recycling, water conservation, tree planting and many more projects in which students take an active and interested part.
Schools also want to support sustainability in the way that they manage the ‘business’ of running a school – for example, making sustainability a factor when choosing suppliers, goods and services.
Toshiba is playing its part, helping schools right across Australia to ‘buy green’, reduce their paper consumption and offset their emissions. In this article, we take a look at what some of the leaders in this field are doing.
Buying Green – Carbon Zero devices
One of the key pieces of equipment that all schools need to buy is a printer/scanner, or multi-function device (MFD). Toshiba is helping schools to drive sustainability by offering the option to buy a Carbon Zero device. Toshiba has examined every detail of its production process to lower emissions as far as is currently possible, and offsets those that cannot be eliminated, so that the school can buy a device confident that it is contributing net zero emissions into the environment.
Reducing paper consumption
Many schools still require printed materials, but many don’t realise that they actually print more than they need, causing unnecessary waste and environmental impact. Toshiba printers come with PaperCut print management software which has useful features to help schools to print only what is needed. The first of these is ‘Print Release’, which holds printing until the user is at the printer to confirm they want to print. This eliminates those print jobs where the user sends documents to the printer, only to realise they need to change the document, or that they don’t need to print at all.
Print quotas and print policies regulate the amount or the way that users can print – departments can be set a quota, forcing users to think about the necessity of printing; they can be charged, which again focuses them on need; or they can be encouraged (or even forced) to use duplex printing.
Reducing physical archives
When schools need to retain information, they can dramatically reduce the amount of physical storage they need, by scanning and digitising their files. This eliminates the need for offsite storage, or frees up space in the school, saving the environmental cost of managing additional rooms or even buildings.
Reducing travel
If something goes wrong with a printer, the traditional approach was that an engineer would be called out, using fuel to travel to the school. Toshiba printers use Kōdo Raven software to send diagnostic information remotely, which in some cases allows a fix to be done without a visit, or it ensure that the engineer comes with the right parts and doesn’t have to come back again, saving the emissions generated by travel.
Paper offset – Print ReLeaf
Whilst schools cannot eliminate their use of paper, Toshiba does give them the option to offset it, through a program called PrintReleaf. Toshiba printers have PrintReleaf software which tracks how many sheets have been printed and then can automatically offset those through reforestation projects.
Schools’ sustainability in practice
St Anne’s Anne’s Catholic Primary School in Auckland are saving paper with Toshiba and PaperCut ‘When a user sends a document to print,’ they say, ‘it is not released until that user gets to the machine and enters their code, and the user has the chance to cancel the print if they need to, so we have less paper wastage.’
Williamstown High School in Victoria uses their Toshiba MFD to scan, store and retrieve documents, meaning they have ‘dramatically cut down on physical storage and no longer need to purchase storage rooms just for documents.’
Mirani State School in Queensland also loves the print release feature, which they say has ‘eliminated wasted printing.’ They’re also impressed with Raven software, which means that their Toshiba partner, who provides support, sometimes know about an issue before the school itself does, and can often fix it over the phone, saving an engineer visit.
There are so many ways that schools can play an active role in driving sustainability – and using Toshiba printers is one additional step that they can take to buy green, lower paper wastage, eliminate unnecessary journeys and offset their paper use.