Earth Day 2014 at Lilly and the No Print Challenge

By David Marbaugh
Apr 22, 2014 11:00 AM ET

LillyPad

Today's guest blog comes from Beth Hunter, associate communications consultant for Lilly Health, Safety, and Environment. 

Imagine not printing anything from your work computer for a day – even a week. Well, that’s what we asked our employees to do.  For one week only employees are taking the No Print Challenge to reduce their printing, or better yet, not print at all. The No Print Challenge is in celebration of Earth Day (officially observed on April 22).

Our goal is to reduce the number of “prints” from the company’s copy machines and printers by 10 percent.  (We define a print as a single–sided document. A dual–sided document is considered to be two prints.)

You’re probably thinking 10 percent doesn’t seem like much, but here in the U.S. we average about 6 million prints per month. That’s a lot of paper, toner, and energy use! We think it’s a good start and a gentle reminder for employees about the impact of something as simple as not hitting the print button. As someone who writes and loves to review my work at my desk with a red pen, I’ll admit the No Print Challenge will indeed be just that – but I’m going to give it my best shot.

To find out more about other Earth Day activities at Lilly, please read our blog.