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'''Link to spreadsheet:''' [[File:Document_Virtualization_ECM.xls]]<br>
'''Link to spreadsheet:''' [[File:Document_Virtualization_ECM.xls]]<br>
<p>Couriers are some of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions.  This is the nature of the business, where mass quantities of goods are shipped across great distances. When a company chooses to ship a document/package, a significant amount of carbon emissions are released; carbon is currently classified as pollutant by the EPA and is the main attributing factor to global warming.</p>
<p>Couriers are some of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions.  Emissions are the nature of the business, where mass quantities of goods are shipped across great distances. When a company chooses to ship a document/package, a significant amount of carbon emissions are released.  This is a problem because carbon is currently classified as a major pollutant by the EPA and is believed to be the main contributing factor to global warming.</p>
<p>Through shipping, these businesses incur economic costs that may be avoidable. For instance, email and other technologies are a good medium to transfer documents electronically, saving costs and carbon emissions. In today's world, companies have the option to save money and reduce their ecological impact like never before.</p>
<p>Through shipping, these businesses incur economic costs that may be avoidable. For instance, email and other technologies are a good medium to transfer documents electronically, saving costs and carbon emissions. In today's world, companies have the option to save money and reduce their ecological impact like never before.</p>



Revision as of 05:52, 11 February 2010

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Overview

Link to spreadsheet: File:Document Virtualization ECM.xls

Couriers are some of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions are the nature of the business, where mass quantities of goods are shipped across great distances. When a company chooses to ship a document/package, a significant amount of carbon emissions are released. This is a problem because carbon is currently classified as a major pollutant by the EPA and is believed to be the main contributing factor to global warming.

Through shipping, these businesses incur economic costs that may be avoidable. For instance, email and other technologies are a good medium to transfer documents electronically, saving costs and carbon emissions. In today's world, companies have the option to save money and reduce their ecological impact like never before.

Environmental Impact

Couriers

The courier business model is not at all environmentally friendly. Air travel has a huge ecological footprint and the contribution of shipping to the air industry is huge: FedEx Express is the world’s largest airline by freight tons shipped. The quantity of emissions produced by a courier depends on many parameters, including whether the package is shipped by air or by ground. UPS, for example, publishes data on CO2 emissions per Available Ton Mile (ATM) for air shipping, as well as gallons of fuel consumed per ground package for ground shipping [1]. These figures are convertible into a total emissions value for a particular package.

Printing

The environmental impact of shipping documents is not limited to the shipping itself. Printing also produces emissions, both in terms of the paper used to print and the energy use during the printing process. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the production of every piece of paper emits 0.013 kg of CO2. A small-sized printer can consume up to 600 W and this amount can become significant over large periods of time.

Economic Impact

Traditional Shipping Costs

Sending documents by courier has an important economic cost. The ECM considers several factors in arriving at a cost.

Time Related Costs

One of the most significant economic costs of conventional shipping is the delay it introduces into the workflow. Two days lost to shipping means that writing must be completed two days earlier, or that the entire project takes two days longer to complete. The significance of this effect depends greatly on the project situation (is this document a part of critical path activities?), with shipping time being important for some projects but not others. In order to account for this, the ECM introduces an input allowing companies to specify the proportion of projects where this time loss is significant.

Cost of Shipping

The cost of shipping is highly correlated to the distance the parcel needs to travel. This information may or may not be readily available to a firm. For ease of use, shipping distances have been divided into several bins.

Cost of Paper

The cost of buying enough paper to print documents to be shipped is included in the ECM. These depend on the cost of paper, for which a quantity is assumed. Also, the increased cost of recycled paper is accounted for.

Electronic Sending Costs

Cost of Document Sharing System

In the past, this cost could have been quite significant. However, many freely available options now exist to share documents electronically. These systems are both easy to use and secure. Two such systems include Google Docs and DropBox. Electronic document sharing also creates additional opportunities for collaboration, an advantage that is not accounted for in the ECM.

Cost to Set Up Program

It may be necessary to purchase scanning equipment in order to allow documents currently stored in hard copy to be sent electronically. Additionally, for large firms, there may be labour costs associated with installing the document sharing system on large numbers of computers and training staff to use the system.

Conclusion

Collaborating documents electronically can have economic benefits to businesses, depending on their particular situation. Reducing dependence on couriers and printing also brings environmental benefits by reducing carbon dioxide emissions associated with transportation and use of paper. Additional research should go into examining potential resistance to electronic collaboration based on a preference for reading hard copy or other human factors.


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