The Hidden Environmental Cost of Office Printing
Most offices know that reducing paper is good for the environment, but few have visibility over what their printing actually costs in resources: energy, paper, and consumables. A managed print service brings sustainable office printing into focus by measuring what is actually happening, rather than estimating it.
Every printer left on standby overnight, every unnecessary colour print, and every cartridge thrown away with usable toner left inside adds up. For a business printing several thousand pages a month, the difference between an efficient and inefficient setup can be significant, both in cost and in environmental impact.
Managed print addresses this in three ways:
1. Monitoring consumption: real-time visibility of print and paper volumes by device, department, or user, so waste is visible rather than invisible
2. Right-sizing the fleet: replacing multiple underused desktop printers with fewer, more efficient shared devices reduces both energy use and the number of cartridges purchased
3. Responsible consumables: toner and cartridges collected, recycled, or remanufactured rather than sent to landfill, with consumables ordered automatically only when needed
For an Office Manager balancing sustainability commitments alongside the day-to-day running of the office, this data matters. It supports conversations with clients, tenders that ask about environmental credentials, and simple year-on-year reporting.
None of this requires replacing your printers with a specific brand. It is about how the fleet, whatever it is made up of, is managed, measured, and maintained.
Find out how much your organisation could save in cost, waste, and energy.
Explore our managed print services here.
You may be interested in
Microsoft is changing Copilot billing. Here’s how to stay in control of AI costs
From 1 December 2026, new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business purchases through CSP will come with usage-based billing already configured. At first glance, that might sound like another variable cost for IT and finance teams to manage. But it also gives businesses a practical way to access the next generation of Copilot experiences while retaining control over who can use them, how much they can spend and where that money goes. This matters because Copilot is changing. New experiences such as Copilot Cowork are designed to carry out larger, multi-step pieces of work. That creates more…
Phishing just got personal
AI-powered phishing attacks are becoming harder to detect, with increasingly sophisticated emails bypassing traditional security controls. As a result, organisations are placing greater focus on Human Risk Management, recognising employee behaviour as a measurable cybersecurity risk. SecureLearn, powered by KnowBe4 and fully managed by Espria, helps businesses reduce human risk through continuous security awareness training, phishing simulations, targeted coaching, and board-ready reporting that demonstrates improvement over time.
Is Your Office Printer a Way In for Cybercriminals?
Most small businesses think of cyber security as a laptop problem, a server problem, or an email problem. The office printer rarely gets a mention, yet it is connected to your network, holds a hard drive, and processes some of the most sensitive documents in the business, from invoices to HR letters and client contracts. However, it is important to realise that office printer vulnerabilities can be exploited by cybercriminals, potentially leading to cyber attacks. A modern multifunction printer is a computer. It has an operating system, a network connection, often Wi-Fi, and increasingly a…
The Cyber Resilience Act: what it means for your business
By Stephen Cook From 11th September 2026, a new EU regulation starts changing how connected products and software are built, sold and supported – and UK businesses trading into Europe are firmly in scope [1] [2]. Here is what the Cyber Resilience Act actually requires, why it matters beyond the compliance paperwork, and how Espria helps clients meet it. What is the Cyber Resilience Act? The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is an EU regulation – Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 – that sets mandatory cybersecurity requirements for “products with digital elements.” In practice, this covers hardware and software that can connect to a device or network: IoT devices,…
The Hidden Costs of Printing: How Managed Print Services Reduce Business Waste
Introduction For many organisations, printing is viewed as a routine operational expense. Printers are purchased, toner is replaced when needed, and documents continue to flow through the business without much scrutiny. However, the true cost of printing extends far beyond paper and ink. Unmanaged print environments often create hidden expenses through inefficient device usage, excessive energy consumption, IT support demands, security risks, and employee downtime. These costs can accumulate significantly over time, impacting productivity and profitability. This is particularly relevant as businesses seek to optimise operations, reduce waste, and improve sustainability while controlling expenditure. Whether…
Can Your Business Actually Recover? The Operational Resilience Question Most SMEs Cannot Answer
Operational resilience is not a technology problem. It is a business problem. And until boards and leadership teams own it, no amount of IT investment will be enough. The Gap Between Confidence and Reality Most organisations believe they are more resilient than they are. The backups are running. The antivirus is licensed. The IT team knows what they are doing. That confidence, in our experience, rarely survives first contact with an actual incident. The question is not whether your systems are protected. The question is whether your business can keep delivering its most important services…