East Midlands Mayday Carbon Positive Awards - Danwood Group

Process:  What have Danwood invested?

To identify and report environmental savings a ‘carbon calculator’ was developed in-house. Danwood can report on a wide range of environmental impacts including energy, CO2, emissions from paper production, waste, transportation and other life-cycle considerations. The carbon calculator contains energy and duplex specifications for more than 7,000 print and copy devices. So whatever print devices a customer has we can show their related environmental impacts and the improvements a new solution can make.

Danwood have also invested significantly in the development of their unique Intelleprint software, along with software specialists EKM4. The Intelleprint team can monitor customers print solutions from a remote location, identifying problems before they occur. This cuts out the need to send a service engineer to identify the problem and allows better route planning with the replacement parts needed already packed in the van; reducing transportation emissions.
But what happens to the machines that are removed?

Danwood’s servicing capabilities allow maintenance of devices from almost any manufacturer, meaning the client’s most efficient and cost effective hardware can often be retained. When devices are removed, Danwood’s remanufacturing centre allows them to be refurbished and re-used in less demanding environments. This increases the life of the product, reducing demand for further resource extraction and emissions from manufacture. For devices beyond repair Danwood ensure high levels of component recycling to minimise landfill. In addition Danwood also offer a free toner recycling collection service.

What and How: What’s wrong with the status quo?

Traditional purchasing of printers and copiers is often problematic - too many printers, many old, inefficient, outdated or out-of-service; draining energy from the sockets and money from the corporate account. A poor print solution is characterised by piles of unwanted print-outs and desks cluttered with printers, faxes and copiers of all shapes and sizes. Two identical printers might be found sat next to each other, when one is more than capable of doing the job. When the print consultant asks “why do you need two?” the answer is usually “they’re for different departments with separate budgets”. By optimising the solution as a whole, rather than building a solution based on like-for-like replacements, Danwood can reduce waste, deliver energy, paper and CO2 savings as well as reducing cost.

Every client is different. For some customers Danwood have reduced device numbers five-fold, generating savings of more than 100 tonnes of CO2 from grid electricity. For others savings of more than two million sheets of paper a month have been achieved. Although these are extreme examples from larger customers, there are usually some savings to be found for most clients. A well-designed solution really can make a difference.

Impact:  Summary of environmental benefits

• Reduced energy consumption – through reduction in device numbers and installation of state-of-the-art energy efficient hardware.

• Reduced paper consumption – through defaulting to double-sided and installing print management software to reduce wasted print jobs.

• Reduced emissions from transportation – through remote monitoring and servicing, training of ‘super users’, efficient route planning and a low emission vehicle fleet.

• Reduced waste – More than 27,000 used machines are tested, repaired or refurbished each year.

Danwood also work to continually reduce their own environmental impact and report this in a CSR Report available at www.danwood.co.uk.