Conservation Ecology Environment Efficiency Green Issues - Help Save the Planet

[LawrenceChard]

I have mentioned previously that some of our bullion and numismatic coins come with free air miles. We have taken a big step recently to try and improve our "green" credentials", but...

I recently signed a 40 page legal document, received by e-mail attachment, which I read on screen, before replying by e-mail, and also printing out the last page, signing it, and returning it.

Today I was asked to print out the entire document, and post it.

I will refrain from naming the other party, but couldn't resist sharing my response:

Dear ***,

 

We can arrange to do that.

 

There may be a slight delay while we get a few trees chopped down, pulped, turned into paper, then fed into our printer.

It is 40 pages long.

 

We might also need to get a quote from a courier.

 

You could print out the first 39 pages at your end, and no one would even know the difference. the ***** **** might even get a "Green Award" for conservation.

 

You don't need it in duplicate or triplicate do you?

 

I am aware you are probably operating under a "Standard Operating Procedure", and most of this response is intended to be humorous, but there is a serious side to it. We frequently sign multi-page documents, some probably exceeding 40 pages. In many of these cases, we can sign electronically, and in worst case scenarios, we can just post back the relevant signature pages.

 

Is it worth you checking with (your) legal team whether any of the above suggestions are acceptable? This is not just for us, it's also for the planet.

 

I have copied a number of your colleagues in to this, and would have included your legal department, but I can't instantly find them in my "Contacts".

Yours, etc...

 

[jultorsk]

Sounds like the Royal Mint are at it again.... time to bring them to this century? 😅😅

[LawrenceChard]

9 minutes ago, jultorsk said:

Sounds like the Royal Mint are at it again.... time to bring them to this century? 😅😅

Ssshhh!

😎

[Gordy]

It's mental, i work for a number of different legal firms and their processes vary massively,

I can get pre-populated forms to print or the same forms blank cos the solicitors cant be arsed to pre populate them with the info (written forms can look unprofessional imho) 

they can ask for two copies to be printed, one for client and a FULL one to be returned or they can ask for signed pages only... 

all they need to do with full copies is to put them together with the signed page included and create a PDF and keep the signed page with the wet signature on file.

Client may need full copies yes but to have a full printed copy on file is daft and a waste of my paper and ink... I probably go through half of Kielder Forest every year for these fools.

They have a patch of new trees with my name on up there just to grow trees for me to print on... 

and then you have the modern legal teams who do electronic signing and do not print anything at all, even I.D's are sent by JPEG and stored digitally... 

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, Gordy said:

It's mental, i work for a number of different legal firms and their processes vary massively,

I can get pre-populated forms to print or the same forms blank cos the solicitors cant be arsed to pre populate them with the info (written forms can look unprofessional imho) 

they can ask for two copies to be printed, one for client and a FULL one to be returned or they can ask for signed pages only... 

all they need to do with full copies is to put them together with the signed page included and create a PDF and keep the signed page with the wet signature on file.

Client may need full copies yes but to have a full printed copy on file is daft and a waste of my paper and ink... I probably go through half of Kielder Forest every year for these fools.

They have a patch of new trees with my name on up there just to grow trees for me to print on... 

and then you have the modern legal teams who do electronic signing and do not print anything at all, even I.D's are sent by JPEG and stored digitally... 

I am not surprised by any of that. Dismayed yes, but surprised no.

It is possible that some solicitors stipulate hard copies so that they can justify charging even more. I can remember a Blackpool solicitors office who used to charge £1 per photocopy, and this was way back in about the late 1970's. I think at the time printshops would charge 4 pence each for singles, and as low as 2 pence for quantity. The actual cost of printing or photocopying at the time was probably around 1 penny or less.

I harbour a sneaky suspicion that the unnamed (by me) entity above may scan and digitise the final document before shredding the hard copy, but that's just me being cynical.

Actually, to be fair, shortly after posting this, we received a reply to say they would send us a PDF which we could sign and return electronically, so we may indeed have just dragged them into the 20th century, if not the 21st.

😎

1 hour ago, Gordy said:

It's mental, i work for a number of different legal firms...

 

 

 

How many illegal ones do you work for?

😎

[Bimetallic]

There's no benefit to avoiding printing. Paper is invariably made from privately owned renewable forests, that harvest the trees on a rotation, replanting each area in turn, and round and round they go. The trees used for paper pulp are young when harvested, no more than 20 years old.

Fine paper is made of cotton, so no trees involved there anyway. Cotton paper is acid-free by default, so it's great for archival and storage purposes. (Most cheap office paper made from tree pulp is also acid-free these days, but not by default.)

Moreover, I don't think environmentalist abstractions are rational or should be encouraged. There is nothing we do regarding paper that has anything to do with something any wise person would call "saving the Earth". Probably nothing we do should be characterized that way, or its opposite. Having an abstraction of "the Earth" as some sort of thing to be saved, and getting a boost from purification rituals tied to said salvation, is all optional. Humans don't need to be running around with such emotional and wobbly abstractions and mystical beliefs.

When I exposed the fraud of the 97% climate consensus paper (the authors lied about their methods, broke experimenter blindness) to the journal publisher (IOP), the corrupt official at IOP sent emails with an appeal at the bottom to "Please think of the Earth before printing this email." Jesus. She was fundamentally ideologically compromised with respect to her ability or willingness to retract a fraudulent paper that served the agenda of this cult or ideology she was affiliated with. Of course she didn't retract the paper – they stuck their heads in the sand and covered it up. (And who prints emails? It wouldn't occur to me to print her ridiculous emails.)

p.s. Is Chard's website supposed to be down right now? Because it is. Is it down "for the environment"?

Edited March 25, 2022 by Bimetallic