The Importance of ESG Strategy and how we made it real with our Digital Fax.

Einstein would think we’ve been absurd.

You know what happened so far, right?

Climate change, social inequality, and unethical company operations took these problems to a global scale. We have heard about it for years, always in the same terms.

Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to achieve different results. We must admit that, with the mismanagement of both tangible and intangible resources and the neglect of the world that hosts us, in the last decades we’ve witnessed a lot of insanity in the internal policies of many companies.

The good news is that companies are made up of people, and some of these people intend to drive change to turn that negative impact into a positive one. 🌱

Drive overall business improvements through sustainability performance.

By ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), we mean business strategies and investments to direct companies towards a positive impact on the environment and society and implement corporate governance practices inspired by ethical criteria (read more here). 

• The criteria underlying the letter « E » (Environmental) assess how a company behaves towards the environment. 
• The criteria of the letter « S » relate to the social impact and examine the relationship with the territory, with people, employees, suppliers, customers, and in general with the communities it operates with. 
• Finally, the “G” of Governance concerns the issues of corporate management inspired by good practices and ethical principles, such as fair remuneration, transparency of corporate decisions, and respect for minorities.
  
  

Who cares most about these criteria? Well, someone crucial to us. First of all, employees, partners, and collaborators, who will be more attracted by a company that considers these criteria rather than one that ignores them. Second, whoever should invest in us, because, very simply, we represent a safer investment. 

The resources used in environmentally conscious businesses are usually less threatened by the climate crisis, while the extended use of a perfectly « transportable » technology allows us to face sudden events without affecting our service offer and work performance (think of the massive transition to the home office due to the pandemic). Plus, fair wages and corporate policies in favor of employees make them more reliable, productive, and happy, turning remote work into an opportunity to get happier.

In short, companies that inspire their strategies and choices to ESG criteria can achieve better results in terms of business and are, at the same time, less exposed to risks.

A sustainable future requires planning.

Like all great things, using technology as an engine to accelerate a more conscious and planet-friendly production and consumption model is not an easy task. It requires business planning and the spread of a new, engaging culture that recognizes people and their communication’ tools as parts of a single system that can become lighter, less intrusive, and accessible by ever-larger sections of the population.

Already committed to tackling the technological revolution from the point of view of tools and hybridization of the office environment, companies must make a double effort and ensure that the wider team is on the same page with the environmental, social, and corporate governance initiatives. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. Successful ESG implementation is based on long-term strategy, ad-hoc team training, and planned methods to transform the business, which requires time, study, and energy (on the other hand, if you are reading this post, you have already taken the first step: becoming aware!). 

The results, however, can be surprising. Employees, for example, will no longer be an element detached from the company’s core business, but part of a common path towards a fairer and greener environment where there is room for initiative and personal creativity (here is the point of view of one of our colleagues in the Middle East!).

Now, each company has its own adjustments to make based on its field. That’s why, to inspire you, I want to tell you about one of our products, Imagicle Digital Fax, as an example of a tool that can truly help companies get rid of unnecessary costs and materials, simplify the daily work of employees e and have an overall positive impact on the environment and people.

When technology removes the unnecessary. Imagicle Digital Fax.

As we’ve seen, companies feel compelled to deliver products and services addressing their customers’ business in an environmentally friendly way. This is the spirit in which one of our flagship apps has evolved: Imagicle Digital Fax.

Let’s start with a fact. Despite what one might think, fax is by no means a dead tool, quite the contrary. The continuous popularity of faxing means that organizations fax hundreds or thousands of invoices, purchase orders, legal documents, financial summaries, and other confidential records daily. Therefore, given the number of materials and people involved, proper fax management can make a difference in the general consumption and impact of a company.

Reliable, secure, and easy to use, Imagicle’s 100% software-based Digital Fax allows the secure transmission of highly sensitive documents across any device. It supports any format and allows sending and receiving faxes from your email client, web interface, digital and multifunctional printer, Cisco Jabber Desktop and Mobile, Cisco Finesse, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, flawlessly integrating with your preferred tool while complying with data security regulations.

In addition to efficiency and a high degree of flexibility and scalability, there is also great saving for you and the planet. For many organizations, meeting their fax demands means linking numerous fax machines and inward and outward analog trunk lines and extensions to the corporate PBX system. Then there are costs for electricity, toners, paper, time and labor – walking to and from the fax machine.

Imagicle Digital Fax helps you get rid of all this by leveraging the transformative power of virtualization. With “virtualization” being a contemporary buzzword, let’s break down the tangible benefits that it can bring to your company and the way it helps you reach your goals in a faster, smarter, easier way.

• It saves trees. Printing the right faxes all the time would still be a waste of paper, but if we take wrongly printed documents into account the waste situation gets jaw-dropping because our first instinct is to throw the paper away and print it again. Gartner states that 17% of company printings go to waste. There’s no other way to put it: conventional faxing has become a liability for the environment, and it’s fantastic how virtualizing it erases this liability completely, with billions of sheets of printed paper dropping down to zero in no time, while keeping the same level of service – improving it, even.
• It saves power. Traditional faxing inherently brings a high power consumption since fax machines are plugged in from morning to evening, even when not in use, thus consuming “vampire power” – electricity consumed by tools that are not in use but still plugged in. With power costs skyrocketing worldwide right now, a digital system helps you save money that can be later invested in the growth of your business. This is especially true for energy-intensive sectors like healthcare.
• It reduces waste. The second greatest component of printed faxes, after paper, is toner. Toner is incredibly expensive and polluting, decreases the air quality of the workspace, and contributes to spreading carbon dioxide. Moreover, fax machines themselves are consumable – maybe more durable than paper and toner, but they will still go in the garbage sooner or later. By eliminating all physical means of faxing, you’re also eliminating waste and making your office a healthier place to work at.
• It gets rid of the mess. No employee wants to spend precious work – or worse, free – time to go over a hundred sheets of paper to find that one fax they need, just as much as they don’t want to run over the whole company office asking “who took the fax I received 30 minutes ago from the machine?” only to hear back “Oh, I did. I received another just after that and I took yours too, by mistake. I don’t know where I put it, though.” Digital Fax makes sure your faxes are continuously tidy, centralized, password-protected in the comfort of your email client (or web app interface, Cisco platforms, and so on).
• It gets rid of the noise. Traditional fax machines create noise pollution and decrease the air quality of the workspace, as stated before. Of course, digital faxing doesn’t do any of those things, because fax machines get eradicated.
• It inspires trust and responsibility. Acquiring and retaining talents is not only about salary. Transversal company qualities are increasingly relevant to potential and existing employees, especially younger ones. A company plunging itself into the future, choosing environmentally friendly and ethical practices – albeit sometimes challenging – will always spark a brighter light in the eyes of many. Completely altering your faxing habits might seem like a stretch at the beginning, but it can lead prospects and potential employees to have faith in corporate management, and thus in the solidity and authority of your business for the foreseeable future. And, the cherry on top – digitally sent/received faxes are 100% traceable, making your communications transparent in the eyes of stakeholders.

In other words, Imagicle Digital Fax is your best buddy to abide by the ESG criteria, because it’s Environmentally conscious by cutting paper and toner usage, Socially ethical because it saves employees time and stress by centralizing and tidying up fax archives, and gives authority to your Governance by making your company more ethical and transparent.

What’s more, you can migrate to our fully digital fax one step at a time, going through an initial phase in which virtualization software can co-exist in a hardware-optimized environment.

Conclusions.

We talked about many things and I hope I have given you some food for thought.

We’ve seen how sustainability performance and ESG data are becoming more important components for companies that want to have a bright future and are of increasing significance to investors, customers, employees. 

We’ve also seen how companies that strive to implement green initiatives are looking for new and more cost-effective means to deploy these solutions, and even if the cost of going green may at times be prohibitive, the Imagicle Digital Fax example shows that, when they are built in a smart way, new technologies can enable reliable and cost-efficient migration towards less impacting tools.

As for our Digital Fax, well… it speaks for itself. The only thing I can recommend is to try it yourself. Ask for a free demo with one of our experts or try it for free for 30 days. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

That’s all for today. If you have any questions or simply want to share your thoughts, drop a line in the comments. Otherwise, full speed ahead: the next move to build a healthier, more human, and more sustainable work environment is yours!