Tech Gone
Green
By: Rebecca Grill, Natural Areas Manager & Dan Johnson, Information Technology Manager
S
ince its founding in 1909, the Park District of Highland Park has been a steward of the environment. In 1992, it was
among the first Park Districts in Illinois to adopt an Environmental Policy increasing awareness and implementing pro-
active measures to address environmental issues that affect the quality of life in our community. Through the years, the
District initiated a recycling program for facilities and parks, developed an integrated pest management program aimed
at reducing use of pesticides and herbicides on playing fields and lawns, and banned smoking in District buildings and vehicles
before that practice became state law.
Today, the Park District of Highland Park is taking a unique
sustainable approach to its use of technology that is delivering
big results. In 2016, when the District’s printer/copier contract
came up for renewal, the IT Department took the opportunity
to implement a new green copier system.
“According to paperless.com, on average, Americans use more
than 700 pounds of paper every year and paper represents
one of the biggest components of solid waste in landfills -- 26
million tons in 2009,” said Dan Johnson, IT manager for the Park
District of Highland Park. “Though we can’t solve the nation’s
reliance on paper, we knew there were new technologies and
simple changes we could make to reduce our paper usage at
the Park District.”
The first step was to pare down the 38 individual printers
scattered throughout the District’s 10 locations. Through an
in-depth usage analysis, the IT Department determined that
14 centrally located machines would be sufficient to serve
the District’s staff. This initial step saved more than $34,000
in leasing costs and gave staff the added benefit of a bit of
exercise on their way to the printer.
Though double-sided printing has always been encouraged
at the Park District, it is now the system-wide default for all
printing. District staff are also encouraged to choose black and
white vs color when printing or copying. A black and white copy
costs $.005 vs. $.049 for a color copy. Printing black and white
also reduces the use of chemical inks which is better for the
environment.
In the first full year of its new green copier system,
the Park District reduced its paper usage by more
than 280,000 sheets; saving an estimated 1,000 trees
otherwise needed to offset CO2 emissions. From January
through May 2018, the District had already saved 108,176
sheets of paper.
“We had reasonable projections going in that we would save
paper and reduce costs, but it is eye-opening to see the actual
results after a year,” notes IT Manager Dan Johnson. “It’s
especially fitting to realize those natural resource savings since
preserving the land is integral to our District’s mission.”
The Park District is also making inroads on paper reduction
with electronic data interchange technologies. These new
The new printers also feature a cloud-based print management technologies reduce our reliance on paper forms. Processes such
software (PaperCut) that provides instant feedback and
as electronic signatures and e-forms have been introduced for
summary reports on the cost of making a copy or printing a
several standard forms both internally and externally.
document. Staff members log in to any one of the 14 printers
to retrieve their printed document or to make a copy. The
printer shows the cost of the copies made as a reminder to staff Not only are these new green systems a technology change for
the District, they have also been a cultural change for staff. Now
and to reinforce the message that there is a cost to printing
staff
members are more discriminating` in what they print versus
and copying. The IT department creates user reports to track
what
can be viewed or shared digitally.
system-wide usage to get the big picture of savings.
Fall 2018 • Park District of Highland Park
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