The Eco-friendly office

When I started teaching in the mid eighties, it was trendy to talk about how computers would bring about the "paperless office". Ha! It's probably fair to say that computers have been responsible for the destruction of more trees than any other piece of office equipment.

161/365: Running away from work
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

I try, as far as possible, to read stuff on screen but despite an increasing number of email signatures extorting me to:

P Before you print think about the environment

I find that there are still many occasions where it is just easier or more convenient to print stuff out (as can be seen in this picture of my desk). Of course, I recycle as much of this paper as possible but I still feel vaguely guilty.

I suspect I am not alone in this and that is why I thought the approach suggested by the Ecofont was really interesting. The idea is that the font has holes in it so it uses less ink when you print. This seems to acknowledge that humans do daft things and uses technology to minimise the impact rather than simply to berate us for being daft.

Now, what about Ecopaper - paper with holes in it to save trees. :-)

More seriously, what do you think? Is this serious or are people just having a laugh? Will printing using a font with holes significantly reduce the amount of ink used?