This is the next in a series of guest blog posts by IntraLinks’ collaborators, partners, and vendors. Horwath MAK offers clients expertise in auditing and accountancy, risk consultancy, management consultancy and structured business support services throughout the UAE, Oman, Azerbaijan and India.

Ancient Egyptians invented paper some 3,000 years ago, from beaten strips of papyrus plants. The immediate predecessor to modern paper is believed to have originated in China in approximately the 2nd century AD. Since its invention, paper has been widely used around the globe for generations to transfer acquired knowledge. It has been a resilient platform for recording and storing information, and has been a solid contributor to the rise of our modern human society.

The Effect of E-Waste on the Environment in China

It is no secret that many businesses around the world are a source of environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions — and that an equal number of corporations are working to change that. Historically speaking, the US has been the largest greenhouse gas emitter, but today China’s environmental problems seem to be increasing at pace with the country’s economic growth. Currently, 16 out of the 20 most polluted cities the world are located in China according to the United Nations Development Program.

The city of Guiyu, China is a prime example of this environmental degradation. This small city’s economy centers on electronic waste (e-waste), which is trash that contains electrically powered products with both valuable and hazardous components. Despite the fact that e-waste imports have been illegal in China since 1996 and the Basel Agreement banned the shipment of electronic waste from the developed to the developing world, over 5,500 businesses in Guiyu are devoted to dismantling e-waste, 80% of which arrives from overseas.

An advantage of not always being the first to do things is the learning opportunity afforded by watching how other people's decisions and investments work out. Recent examples include the trend for biofuels which has sent food prices soaring and has caused forests to be cleared to make space to grow biofuel crops. However, it appears that processing these crops into biofuels may generate more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels would have done anyway. Even “green” hybrid vehicles are being questioned because of the size of the carbon footprint associated with the production and transportation of the nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries they use.

What does the term "greenwashing" mean?

As the trend of corporate responsibility steers companies to jump on the "green bandwagon," some remain involved only at surface level. "Greenwashing" refers to companies who unjustifiably portray themselves to the public as environmentally conscious. These companies make more efforts to appear to reduce their environmental impact than efforts to invest in the business practices that would actually do so.

As a business professional, I fend off hundreds of emails in a day with various weapons of choice like my BlackBerry or my company laptop. (One recent report estimates the average person sends and receives 133 email messages a day!) Yet just when I think I'm winning the "Battle of the (email) Bulge" by diligently responding, filing, and deleting, I realize mine is a pyrrhic victory. The corporate paper trail I deal with extends well beyond email, piling up in reams of documents that clutter our desks, filing cabinets, faxes, and printers.

The real war against document proliferation is going on right in front of us: on the desktop (the physical one, not the virtual one). A recent study by the Association for Information and Image Management (AAIM) shows that the average professional photocopies a single document 19 times. Multiply that by the estimated 4 trillion paper documents in the U.S. that are growing at a rate of 22% per year and you have quite a pile of paper to manage.