Britons are 'prolific printers'

Britons print large quantities of electronic documents, with much of them unnecessary, it has been claimed.

According to the results of research by Fujitsu Siemens Computers, every day the average British employee prints a total of 22 pages, with 53 per cent confessing to making a number of copies of the same document in error.

Eight per cent even go as far as printing-off unread emails.

"Printing and copying are significant costs for any business and can represent as much as five per cent of its total revenue," said Paul Parrish, managing director of IT product services at Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

However, the justification for printing varied between those surveyed, with 19 per cent opting to make non-electronic copies of documents for their own records and 31 per cent feeling more comfortable with reading documents away from a computer screen.

"Despite this outlay it would appear that the majority of companies do not seem to have any centralised function taking responsibility for their printer environment," he added.

The Fujitsu Siemens joint venture was established in 1999.