Posted by Link4 Team on 19/11/2019
Have you ever wondered how much paper Australia uses per year and how the environment has suffered to facilitate paper usage?
Recent research by Forest ethics highlighted that Australia is the largest consumer of paper products per capita in the world. Australian businesses and families use over 2.4 million tonnes of paper for printing and writing every year. Electronic Invoice Delivery (or e-invoicing), removes the need for paper as the invoice information is delivered electronically.
Traditionally, paper usage has been higher for the Accounting and Finance industry because invoicing required higher paper usage. However, changes in technology now mean a substantial amount of paper can be saved through e-invoicing which minimizes paper pollution.
Every 1 tonne of paper needs 12-24 trees to manufacture. It is estimated that 180 trees are used for just one business each year. Some may think that trees are a renewable resource. However, when you consider that the printed invoice is only read once or never at all, it has a major impact on paper usage for no real value. We must remember that the world’s forest area continues to decrease dramatically. This brings to the fore how vital it is to use an e-invoice rather than a physical one. This one eco-friendly solution is simple to implement, efficient, cost-effective and provides a real benefit to the environment.
Government Supports e-invoicing
With environmental issues increasing such as global climate change, air pollution, and overflowing landfills, the Government has published more regulations to solve the problems. The Australian and New Zealand legislation concluded that there are no legal or policy barriers to the implementation of an e-invoicing approach. The Federation of Finnish Financial Services also announced that electronic invoicing allows businesses to be green, productive and service-oriented because “an electronic invoice is on average four times more environmentally friendly than a paper invoice.”
How e-invoicing helps the Environment?
E-invoicing will reduce paper usage because the information is transferred electronically. The Australian Taxation Office requires a copy of a physical invoice to be kept for at least five years, but there is no need to store a box of physical paper. The ATO accepts an electronic copy of the invoice as an official tax record! This means that e-invoicing greatly reduces paper consumption, and even eliminates paper from the invoicing process. This saves 1-2% of the company’s turnover by removing consumables like paper, printer and ink costs. It saves a substantial amount of work time, which reduces emissions and increases overall productivity. Therefore, the work method of a single employee affects the carbon footprint of the entire company.
E-invoicing is simple to use. In fact, it makes better business sense than current methods and it can help with our efforts to save the environment. All business owners should review if they can implement e-invoicing within their business.
Thousands of businesses are already using the Link4 e-invoicing service. Read how you can help save our planet here.
The information has been sourced from:
http://www.finanssiala.fi/en/material/Environmentally_friendly_electronic_invoice.pdf
