Paper Consumption Survey in Singapore

by Spire Research and Consulting

In August 25, 2005, Spire Research and Consulting came out with a press release entitled “A Paperless Society – A Distant Dream?” It says only 12 in 100 companies in Singapore says paper consumption dropping, almost 90% have no guidelines on paper use. Here I quote:
“Despite the proliferation of document management technologies and increasing public awareness of the environmental costs of de-forestation, paper consumption in Asia is rising at a steady pace. Within the next five years, this region is expected to account for one-third of global consumption. A recent survey of 100 companies in Singapore conducted in May-June 05 by Spire Research and Consulting, the leader in Asia-Pacific strategic market intelligence, found that:

1. Only 12 percent of offices noticed a drop in their paper consumption in the last two years

2. 37 percent noticed that paper consumption had remained at the same level during this period


3. 51 percent noticed that paper consumption had increased during this period
The sample consisted of 37 companies with staff strength less than 30, 31 companies with staff strength between 30 to 100 and 32 companies with staff strength of above 100. Survey respondents consisted of executives with knowledge of and/or responsibility for paper purchasing patterns in each company.

The survey also revealed that paper-purchasing behavior is similar irrespective of the size of the organization. Individual departments, each with up to 25-30 personnel, order paper independently. Rarely do paper-conservation initiatives seriously impact ordering behavior.”


Conclusion on "Paperless Society literature survey"

After foraging about 37 articles from the World Wide Web and other reading materials from the libarary, I came to conclude that there are three reasons why paperless society is a myth and will continue to be so: (1) People still don’t trust the internet or the computer systems – they believe that personal privacy will be compromised if we depend too much on computers for our daily information needs (information security is a major concern), (2) We are addicted to Paper, and (3) Technology is not cheap when two-third of the world’s population is not yet reached by electricity.