The Cost of Doing Business: Sertifi and Sustainability

With travel and tourism accounting for more than 8 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, projected to generate global greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 6.5 billion metric tons in 2025, it’s no surprise that hospitality businesses are on the hook to offset the impact. With 90 percent of guests wanting to travel more sustainably in the future, Sertifi can help bolster your hotel or travel business’s sustainability efforts. 

The Paperless Office 

Offices are estimated to waste about 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year, with paper being 50% of waste businesses create. Paperless offices are becoming less of a progressive stance and more of a necessary way to conduct business. While customers look for sustainable companies to do business with, paperless offices are notoriously more efficient in their operations and going paperless can save companies more than $120 billion a year on printed forms. At the same time, companies that automate their operations are saving 20 to 30% of their annual revenue that would have been lost due to manual processes. 

The Cost of Doing Business 

To conduct business in a distributed world with paper, you’re not just printing an agreement once but faxing it to a customer, who is then faxing it back. 5-page hotel contracts may be printed 3 times – 15 pages used for a single agreement. 

Meanwhile, in a sample of active users, the average Sertifi customer sends 670 authorization forms each year and 1,330 other documents, including contracts and waivers. Those 2,000 agreements for the 7,277 customers sampled just saved 218.3 million sheets of paper – or 26,200 trees – in 12 months. 

The Freedom and Security of Digital 

Sertifi not only frees users up from paper processes and gets you one giant step closer to a paperless office but allows guests to have a more secure digital experience in signing contracts and sending credit card details. Paperless transactions, digital storage, and eliminating fax and copy machines can save your business significant time and money – and give your sustainability transformation a major boost. 

Automated digital solutions are here to stay and if they are utilized correctly, they can provide aid to the hospitality and travel industries by being the most sustainable way to do business.