It’s a paper trail that extends to every municipal department in London.
Last year city hall printed about 6.5 million pieces of paper—and that’s the good news.
The director of Information Technology, Mat Daley, says it was closer to 10 million pages just a couple years ago.
“The good news is that is down 33 per cent when we compare 2016 to 2018. People are becoming very aware of the environment and the importance in reducing the paper use. We've also undertaken education campaigns.”
If each paper were 8.5” x 11” and laid edge-to-edge, last year the line of pages would stretch all the way to Winnipeg, MB.
Daley says less paper results from better technology, “The most important thing we can do to reduce the use of paper is to provide good digital solutions to our users and our employees.”
While city hall is also providing Londoners with more digital options through its website, there remains a long way to go.
But Daley would like to eventually see 6.5 million pages a year reduced - to none.
“I think we should aspire to go zero paper…Now that is on the horizon…There's no question, but we can aspire to go zero paper.”
