World Paper Free Day (#wpfd) takes place tomorrow, Thursday, October 27, 2011. This is the second year in a row that the AIIM ECM industry group has challenged all of us to think differently about paper.

Local events are taking place. We're getting closer to having all the tools we need to start making that famous 1975 Business Week article a reality

When George Pake coined the term ‘paperless office’ in 1975, he predicted paper-free recordkeeping by the 1990’s. Not only has this famous prediction not quite come true, paper usage more than doubled during the dawn of the desktop computing era (1980s to 2000s), peaking in 2001 and now is slowly declining in North America.

Paper has a cost. Eliminating our use and need for paper affects our environment positively (a reduction in pulp production) and negatively (increase in energy consumption and heavy metal use for replacement electronic devices & data centers/servers). Those costs are hard to measure against. However, direct cost savings from the elimination of paper include document storage, transportation, and paper waste (unnecessary printing). Therefore, World Paper Free Day can only have an impact if you take the time to pause and reflect on your usage of paper.

While strides have been made by making digital copies and signatures as legal-binding as paper-based ones, electronic bill & presentment, and improved group collaboration software to reduce our personal and professional paper usage, we still have a long way to go to collectively achieve the goal (as seen in this AIIM-produced video below)



Getting to Paper Free is not going to be easy. Paper still has great utility – for many of us, paper is still the ‘tool’ of choice for capturing quick notes, quickly visually drawing out a solution (business plan-on-a- cocktail-napkin anyone?), or jotting down a to-do list. Reading paper-based materials tends to produce less eyestrain than reading from a display, plus tends to be 6-10% faster. The initial goal should be about using “Less Paper” rather than becoming Paper Less or Paper Free. So, how can we achieve this initial goal?

Start by looking at the easiest person to change, the one you have the most influence over: Yourself! Ask yourself: What can I do to reduce my reliance on paper?
When I learned about World Paper Free Day in early October 2011, I asked that very question. Over this past month, have tried to change my habits and how I use/need/interact with paper. I won’t lie, it’s been painful at times, some successes, some failures – but I’ve stuck with it.
I’ll share my personal action plan towards a Paperless life in part I of tomorrow’s World Paper Free Day post.

After starting down your personal path towards a ‘Less Paper’ lifestyle, take the next step and see what can be done in your professional life. This one is naturally trickier because some things will be beyond your control and require the involvement of others, whether it is with the assistance of co-workers or IT and/or the directive of senior management. The habits of many have to be changed and may involve using new technology to make the required impact – no small task for one person. But no fear, thoughts on how to get your organization moving towards a ‘Less Paper’ mindset is part II of tomorrow’s World Paper Free Day post.

Learn more about AIIM’s World Paper Free Day, visit http://www.aiim.org/events/paper-free-day or join the twitter discussion at #wpfd.