Green copy

Green Copying, abbreviated to gc is the term that describes how certain email and text/data messages can be sent. Instead of sending an email to a cc or bcc, a person would be able to click the gc icon that would allow the recipient to read but not print the email. Emails that do not directly pertain to the person and therefore have no use for being printed would be sent in this manner. Companies are able to save money by sending out blanket emails to all employees but by limiting the number of printable copies they could limit their potential paper output. Studies are being performed to see how much of what is printed in a corporate environment is actually used and whether going green will help cut paper costs.

Created in hopes that the world would be willing to stop copying people on items, the idea was introduced in 2008.

Emails that had a listing of gc or green copy would instruct the user that this item not be printed. In the age of digital organizers and web based calendars, people see the gc label and understand that the printing of information just to then file it electronically. People currently can type at the end of an email to "please consider the environment before printing" but as of yet there is no formal way to direct the reader towards another option.

The term was created by Josh Ruderman in 2008, a teacher and environmental forward thinker when he became aware of the growing number of items printed in his school that went unread. Often just because people were copied on a document they felt a need to print it out. This added cost to schools and businesses can be hard to quantify. Of course people would be quick to make the file printable but the purpose would not be to stop such acts, simply remind employees that theenvironment should be considered before adding paper into landfills. Ruderman began a program in 2007 to bring awareness to this cause. In August 2007 he sent a letter to Mircosoft asking for the addition of gc to their office suite package, this would enable people to click gc rather than cc or bcc and would give the person access to only reading the article or attachments rather than printing. Since then, he has continued to work to bring change by the major software companies.

It is the hope that people will start to use the term gc rather than cc in order to raise awareness that not all emails should be printed.

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