Won’t somebody think of the turtles?!
3 min read
I was having lunch with my sister one day and I turned down the waiter's offer of a straw with my drink. I joked to my sister that I was doing it for the turtles. Now anytime my sister or I make a conscious choice to be more environmentally friendly, we say we are doing it for the turtles. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of reasons to be more environmentally minded, but we sum it up as thinking of the turtles.
I worked on a Tender where one of the major client drivers was sustainability and environmentally friendly practices. But it was a printed 4000 page submission in triplicate. Three printed copies. 12,000 pages! We did everything we could to make the submission more environmentally friendly. We used recycled paper and were as efficient as possible in the printing process to reduce errors and reprints, but I looked at all that unnecessary printing and thought “Won’t somebody think of the turtles”?
Printing may have been necessary when computers were heavy slabs attached to your desk. Now we walk around with smartphones (tiny computers) in our pockets. Your laptop screen is about the size of a piece of paper, and cloud services can sync all your documents across all your devices.
More and more software and portal providers are developing systems for electronic tender submissions. The technology is only going to get better, and it’s already good enough that we really don’t need to print anymore. We need to learn new habits!
Why not go paperless? It’s more efficient, eco-friendly and affordable. Just some of the reasons we should encourage it:
Files are backed-up. If you are using a platform like SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft Teams, your files are backed up. No need to share a printed copy amongst the team and hope no one leaves it on a train.
You and your clients can easily electronically search across all your files. SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, even Windows offer text search features. Access and compliance made simple.
You and your clients can access the documents from anywhere! A PC, smartphone, or tablet is all it takes. But you can’t access printed tender documents when they are sitting in folders in an office.
You don’t have to worry about storing, organising, or making space for physical tender documents. And uploads to tender portals and electronic submissions don’t require you to book out the boardroom for a week!
No Printing Costs. Tenders are costly exercises. You can save money on production time resources (even consultants!), ink, reams of paper and other printing collateral.
And, of course, we can reduce our carbon footprint. We are all seeking ways to be more environmentally friendly, and electronic submissions are an easy step. I hate to think how much printed material ends up in landfill. And you don’t need a truck to deliver an electronic submission!
When technology is advanced enough that you can draft, read, review and assess documents on almost any device, it doesn’t feel right to keep printing out tenders.
Let’s go paperless. Let’s do it for the turtles!