“Dealing with Claims, Legal & Control inevitably means a lot of documents,” says Johnny Dyreholt Holm, Head of Claims & Legal in NORDEN’s Limassol office.

“For every vessel we generated around 1,000 print outs annually. When we visited customers for settlement deals I would sometimes have to pull it behind me in a wheely suitcase. It was heart-breaking to see all that paper go straight into recycling.”

Johnny decided enough was enough; and embarked on a mission to solve Limassol’s paper problem.

“I quickly realised that we already had the digital tools to go paperless – the hardest thing was to change was the mindset. When anyone opened a document, the first thing they would do is press print. We had to change that mentality.”

New document readers and extra screens were introduced for everyone, and colleagues were encouraged to cut paper consumption. By February 2020, the maximum weekly paper consumption permitted was just three A4 sheets per colleague.

In the end, the Corona lockdown completely wiped out paper use in Limassol for good. “During Covid, people adjusted to working from home and we went 100% digital. Now we have got rid of paper completely and we’ve never looked back. Today when we go to client meetings all we bring is our laptops.”

While the team in Limassol has more than doubled in size over the past two years, paper consumption is down by 98%, as new joiners have embraced the digital way of doing things.

“When we first introduced the paperless office, colleagues found it annoying to change procedures. But we estimate we have saved about 400,000 print outs per year – which equates to around 40 trees. Now we look back and think ‘why didn’t we do this sooner..’?