How Electronic Signatures Contribute to Sustainability

As consumer demands evolve, more businesses are creating strategies with sustainability in mind. There are many ways a company can become more sustainable.

There are numerous changes businesses can make, both big and small, to enhance their sustainability. For example, using renewable energy or partnering with a green supplier.

For businesses making sustainable changes, switching to e-signatures could be a beneficial solution. Electronic signatures are a great way to reduce paper consumption and carbon footprint. Supporting your business in becoming more environmentally friendly.

Let’s explore how eSign’s electronic signatures can help make your business more sustainable.

Why is sustainability important for businesses?

As climate change pressure continues to grow, business leaders must act now. Here are 4 reasons why sustainability is important for businesses:

Boost your brand reputation

Brands that are bad for the environment quickly gain a bad reputation. 61% of people in an ING survey stated they wouldn’t buy a product if the company had bad practices. So, being sustainable can boost your brand’s reputation and support business growth.

Win over new customers

75% of millennials plan to change their habits to reduce their impact on the planet. The increase will probably continue as the environmentally conscious Gen Z becomes consumers. Having sustainable business practices can appeal to the new generation of customers. This ensures your business can keep thriving as ideals and priorities change.

Improve operational efficiency

Improving sustainability goes hand in hand with improving efficiency. For example, improving energy efficiency cuts both your carbon footprint and energy bills. One study even found that reducing resource costs can improve operating profits by up to 60%.

Attract and keep talent

Your business sustainability not only helps attract customers but also employees. Around 40% of millennials (age 26-41) have taken a job because of a company’s sustainability policy. Since millennials make up most of the workforce, sustainability can help you attract and keep top talent.

How can electronic signatures contribute to sustainability?

eSign believes that electronic signatures and documents can help businesses become more sustainable. Let’s take a closer look at how e-signatures can help your business become more sustainable:

Waste less paper

Offices go through a lot of paper processing documents. This creates waste and contributes to your business’s carbon footprint. It’s estimated that the average office employee consumes 10,000 sheets of paper every year. And more than three-quarters of that paper will end up as waste. Switching to digital signatures removes the need to print business documents. So, you can help reduce your paper waste and the associated carbon footprint.

Enable remote working

We all know that transportation releases carbon emissions, especially travelling by car. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the workforce stayed at home to work. Leading to CO2 emissions caused by transport dropping by 15%.

Therefore, a work from home policy could reduce your company’s carbon emissions. Also, with e-signatures, staff can create, share, and sign documents from anywhere. This allows them to work seamlessly at home, without commuting to the office.

Lessen the impact of paper production

Paper production uses lots of energy, water, and chemicals, impacting the planet. It takes around 10 litres of precious water to make a single A4 sheet of paper. In turn, it then creates wastewater that can be harmful if not processed correctly. Moving to digital documents means you will no longer support damaging paper production.

Reduce your document miles

To get important documents to a client, you may have to post them or meet the signer in person. Both can generate unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, an average year of incoming post adds 136kg of emissions to your carbon footprint. Which is the same as driving 200 miles in a car.

Vehicles that release emissions often transport your post from A to B, such as a car or plane. But, using digital documents removes those emissions from your processes. So you can operate more sustainably.

Help protect our trees

We all know that paper comes from trees. And people cut down trees to make that paper. While the UK recycles around 80% of paper, a single sheet can only be recycled between 5-7 times.

That means that eventually new paper will need to be produced and trees will need to be cut down to do it. Switching to digital documents can help keep trees where they belong.

Do digital documents have an environmental impact?

Sending and signing documents digitally has a minimal impact on the environment. However, the hardware and energy required to utilise them than be harmful in some ways. When calculating the carbon footprint of a digital document, you’ll need several elements. A device, electricity, and storage for the data to be operational.

Digital documents have less of a negative environmental impact than paper. Even with the energy required to use them. Discussions about digital carbon footprint are becoming more common. Big tech companies are finding ways to make digital solutions more environmentally friendly.

To maximise your business’s digital transformation, closely monitor your tech and energy usage. You can do this by:

• Maximising the life span of your tech products

• Recycling tech waste properly

• Deleting unnecessary files

• Opting for green hosting

Take control of your carbon footprint with eSign

eSign provides the tools you need to switch to digital documents. So you can wave goodbye to paper waste. Let’s take a closer look at some of eSign’s features and how they can help your business operate more sustainably:

Secure eSignatures

Signatures are used to approve or agree to the contents of a document. Reduce your paper consumption and paper waste by using an electronic signature. Our e-signature allows you to keep your documents digital so you don’t have to print out paper copies to sign by hand. This can help to reduce, if not completely cut, your paper consumption.

Carbon counter

We know that many businesses like to track their carbon footprint. That’s why we’ve built a carbon calculator into the eSign platform. When you sign a document, our calculator works out how much carbon you’ve saved going digital. This provides an at-a-glance overview of how much carbon the eSign platform has saved you.

Digital payment processing

Processing payments involves lots of invoices and receipts, which means lots of paper. With eSign, you can sign and send digital payment documents from the platform. So you never lose track of your financial transactions. Also, you can integrate a payment gateway, combining two transactions into one. Greater efficiency. Less paperwork. Yes please.

Customisable Web Forms

Sometimes, your business or organisation may need clients to fill out forms. Our customisable web forms allow you to collect key information without a printer. This makes life easier for you and your clients. Allowing them to fill in forms at their own pace, on their preferred device.

Conclusion

Electronic signatures are extremely beneficial in supporting businesses with their sustainability efforts. Removing paper or at least significantly reducing paper use can result in valuable savings in costs and carbon emissions.

Ready to start reaching your sustainability goals with e-signatures? Contact eSign today to discuss your requirements or register for a 14-day free trial and explore the features firsthand.