Ahead of the Docflow Ukraine exhibition, to be held in Kyiv on 19 September 2012, Yuriy Syvytsky, member of the Supervisory Board of the Intecracy Group IT consortium and founder of Softline IT, spoke about the benefits of using electronic document management systems. One of the main arguments in their favor is care for the environment.
"Paper is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions of humankind, without which the development of society would have been impossible. However, its consumption needs to be reduced. Today, too many natural resources, which keep getting more expensive, are spent on paper production, and the environment suffers greatly. I believe this is unjustified. After all, the speed of processing and the amount of information in the 21st century require the use of electronic media," says Yuriy Syvytsky.
This issue is particularly relevant for large enterprises, banks and government bodies, which, owing to the nature of their work, are veritable factories for producing and processing information. And that information has to be printed, processed, structured and stored, and the required data has to be found quickly when needed. "The only way for such organizations not to drown in a flood of paper is to implement an electronic document management system," Yuriy Syvytsky is convinced.
The expert cites the following figures. A medium-sized organization creates about 40,000 documents a year, and printing them requires about 200,000 sheets of paper, or 400 reams, each weighing about 2.5 kg. In other words, such an organization uses 1 tonne of paper a year. Printing also requires 40 cartridges, each costing about $100, for a total of $4,000. Add to this the cost of the paper itself, $2,000. It may not seem like much, though it is not a small sum either. "But this is only one aspect," says Yuriy Syvytsky, and he describes the others, which are no less important, in detail.
"To produce 100 kilograms of paper, one tree that takes 20–40 years to grow has to be cut down; in other words, every year a single organization destroys 10 trees. Nationwide, according to various estimates, at least 2,000 tonnes of paper, or 20,000 trees, a small forest, go into office paperwork. What will happen after 10 years or so of such consumption, which, incidentally, keeps growing…" Yuriy Syvytsky says that the most frustrating thing in this situation is that most of this paper is either thrown away or burned.
"It is time to save resources, both to save money and to protect the environment," says Yuriy Syvytsky. In his view, the transition from paper-based to fully electronic document management is inevitable. And the sooner humanity completes this journey, the fewer natural resources will be spent. Precious forest goes into paper, and forest is the air we breathe. That is why the Intecracy Group consortium will continue to work on developing electronic document management systems, promoting them and implementing them in large organizations, Mr Syvytsky emphasizes.