Will you go paperless in 2013?

A new year brings new resolutions such as losing weight, getting a new job, or – in my household – cleaning out the garage so you can (finally!) park a car in it.

The Paperless Coalition recently announced its new year’s resolution to enourage individuals to ‘go paperless’ in 2013. According to the Coalition’s Paperless 2013 website, “Paperless 2013 is a campaign to remove the need for ‘paper’ from paperwork.”

Why should you go paperless? The Coalition argues that going paperless will help the environment by reducing the volume of paper, both consumed and recycled. To support that premise, the Coalition’s website offers up the following factoids:

The average US office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year (US Environmental Protection Agency statistic)
In 2010, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 334 pounds for each person living in the US (American Forest & Paper Association statistic)

Led by HelloFax, the Paperless 2013 Coalition includes Expensify, Fujitsu ScanSnap, Google Drive, HelloSign, Manilla, and Xero.

When you take the electronic Paperless 2013 pledge, you’ll be signed up to receive a monthly newsletter which promises to provide tips and tools for going paperless. You’ll also receive a welcome message with the following offers from Paperless 2013 Coalition members to get you started:

5GB free trial from Google Drive (cloud storage)
50 free pages/month from HelloFax (online faxing)
Free trial from Manilla (online bill management)
Free trial from HelloSign (e-signatures)
Free trial from Expensify (online expense reports)
Free trial from Xero (online business accounting)
Opportunity to find out more about Fujitsu’s SnapScan portable scanners

You can follow the Paperless 2013 campaign on Google+ and Twitter (#Paperless2013), and and you can like the campaign on Facebook.

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