IT giant HP has today launched a new best practice guide designed to help small and medium sized businesses cut paper use and limit the environmental impact of their printing activities.

The free online guide was released as HP debuted the results of a new survey which showed that the majority of firms with under 1,000 employees currently have no green business policy in place and are shunning many of the simple low and no-cost steps they could take to limit the environmental impact of their printing operations.

However, the report also revealed attitudes are beginning to change with 54 per cent of the 1,200 executives surveyed claiming they will be looking to procure more environmentally sustainable printing products over the next two years.

Rhiannon Williams, commercial supplies manager market manager at HP, said that besides investing in more energy efficient printers there were plenty of simple measures firms can take to cut the environmental impact of their printers.

"Policies such as think before you print campaigns, encouraging staff to look to share documents electronically, ensuring all printers are set for duplex [double sided] printing, and ensuring facilities are in place to recycle paper and cartridges, can all be implemented relatively easily," she observed.

Advice on how best to implement these policies is included in the new guide, which also features a check list managers can use to assess the green credentials of their current printing policy.

Bruno Zago, environment manager for HP in the UK and Ireland, said that the failure of many firms to implement such policies was typically down to conservative management rather than genuine business barriers to adoption. "A lot of firms get into a rut with their process," he argued. "There is a sense that you always print out invoices for customers because that is what they want, but if you actually asked the customer you'll probably find that as long as they have a receipt they just don’t need a paper invoice too."

He added that firms that do implement green printing policies also stand to reduce their costs, noting that HP has saved around $9m in the last year by ensuring all printers print in duplex as their default setting.