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How Managed Print Supports Cambridge Net Zero Goals
Cambridge has set out serious climate ambitions and its businesses, colleges and institutions are expected to play their part. Here is how managed print helps cut paper, energy and waste and turns those savings into figures you can report.
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READING TIME
6 minutes
WRITTEN FOR
Sustainability and office leads
COVERAGE
Cambridge and Silicon Fen
LAST REVIEWED
August 2026
Net zero
Cambridge has declared a climate emergency and a net zero ambition
Duplex
Double sided by default to cut paper use
Reuse
Old devices refurbished or responsibly recycled
Report
Real figures for ESG and sustainability returns
Cambridge takes climate seriously. The city council has declared a climate emergency and set out a climate strategy, the University of Cambridge has its own net zero commitment and a great many of the science, technology and professional firms across the cluster now carry environmental targets of their own. Print is a small but genuinely useful place to make progress against all of them.
On its own a printer looks like a minor line in a carbon footprint. Across a whole organisation, though, the paper, the toner, the energy drawn by a scatter of underused devices and the waste at end of life add up to something worth tackling. Managed print reduces each of those and just as importantly it measures the reduction, which is what turns a good intention into a reportable result.
Why print matters for net zero
The environmental cost of print sits in three places. There is the paper and toner consumed every day. There is the energy drawn by the devices, which is far higher when an organisation runs many small underused printers instead of a few efficient ones. And there is the embodied carbon and waste in the hardware itself, especially when devices are thrown away rather than reused. A managed approach works on all three at once rather than chasing paper alone.
Managed print is unusually good for sustainability because the things that cut carbon also cut cost, so the business case and the climate case point the same way. The main levers are simple and proven.
SUSTAINABILITY LEVER WHAT IT DOES ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Right sizing the fleet Fewer, better used devices Less energy and less embodied carbon
Duplex and mono defaults Double sided, colour only on demand Lower paper and toner use
Secure print release Only collected jobs ever print Cuts wasted and abandoned prints
Responsible end of life Refurbish or recycle old devices Keeps hardware out of landfill
MANAGED PRINT SUSTAINABILITY LEVERS FOR CAMBRIDGE ORGANISATIONS, AUGUST 2026.
Remote monitoring adds a quieter benefit. Because many faults are diagnosed and often fixed without a visit, there are fewer engineer journeys across Cambridge, which trims the travel footprint of keeping a fleet running. Local basing helps here too, since the visits that are needed are short local trips rather than long drives.
The biggest single win is usually paper. Duplex by default and secure release together remove a surprising volume of unnecessary printing, since nothing prints until someone collects it and everything prints double sided unless there is a reason not to. Right sizing then cuts the energy bill by replacing a scatter of always on desktop printers with a smaller number of efficient shared devices that sleep when idle.
Where managed print cuts your footprint
Relative contribution of each lever to a lower print footprint. Illustrative.
Paper reduction
High
Energy from fewer devices
High
Wasted print removed
Medium
Toner and cartridge reuse
Medium
Engineer travel cut
Lower
Life science and R and D firms often fold print into wider ESG reporting for investors. Our guide to Managed Print for Cambridge Life Sciences looks at print for Cambridge life sciences and biotech firms.
COPYBOX DOCUMENT SYSTEMS
Turn print into a net zero win
We help Cambridge organisations cut the paper, energy and waste tied up in printing and then measure the saving so it counts towards your net zero and ESG goals. Right sized fleets, sustainable defaults, responsible recycling and a free print audit to establish your baseline.
A lot of print carbon is embodied in the machines themselves, so what happens to a device at the end of a contract matters. Rather than sending old hardware to landfill, devices are collected for refurbishment and reuse or broken down for responsible recycling and consumables are recovered through take back schemes. That keeps material in use for longer and is exactly the kind of circular practice that a credible net zero plan is built on.
A saving you cannot measure is a saving you cannot report and Cambridge organisations are increasingly asked to prove their environmental claims. Managed print reporting gives clear figures on paper and toner use, device energy and waste diverted from landfill, so a sustainability lead can put real numbers into an environmental, social and governance return or a tender response rather than a vague statement of intent.
Sustainability that also saves money
The neat thing about print sustainability is that it pays for itself. Fewer devices, less paper and less waste all cut cost at the same time as cutting carbon, so the greener option is usually the cheaper one too. Reliable local support keeps it all running efficiently and our guide to Onsite Print Support Across Cambridge explains how that support works across the Cambridge area.
Managed print and Cambridge net zero, common questions
How does managed print actually reduce carbon?
Can you give us figures for our ESG reporting?
Does going greener mean paying more?
What happens to our old printers at the end of a contract?
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Cambridge Managed Print FAQs
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Every article in the Cambridge Managed Print FAQs collection is written for Cambridge organisations, so you can jump straight to the topic that fits your goals.
Print will never be the biggest line in a Cambridge organisation carbon footprint but it is one of the easiest to improve and one of the few where the green choice is also the cheaper one. Right size the fleet, default to duplex and secure release, recycle responsibly and measure the result and print becomes a small but real contribution to net zero. If you would like to establish your baseline, our Managed Print Services Cambridge service page sets out how we run an audit, a design and an install for organisations across Cambridge and the Silicon Fen area.