Energy managers and sustainability professionals have worked tirelessly to find ways to reduce electricity consumption at their sites, with optimized lighting, HVAC, and building controls usually at the top of the list. But there’s one energy-intensive product hiding in plain sight — and it’s sitting in nearly every classroom, office, and admin building: the laser printer.
Laser Technology: An Energy-Intensive Way to Print
Printers may not be the largest electricity users, but they belong to the often-overlooked category of “plug load” — appliances and electronics plugged into wall outlets — which can account for nearly half of the electricity consumption in commercial buildings.1 It’s time to take a hard look at this equipment and look for energy-saving alternatives.
Laser printers and copiers may be an obvious place to start: they typically use more electricity than comparable printers using alternative print technologies. Laser technology depends on heat, because plastic is the primary ingredient in laser toner. To fuse that toner to paper, laser printers use a fuser unit that melts the powdered plastic at temperatures reaching up to 200°C.
Every page printed means more heat, more power, and more plastic. Since 1991, global laser printing has consumed an estimated 10 billion pounds of plastic toner powder — much may take hundreds — or even thousands — of years, to decompose.2
Because toner is made primarily of plastic, every laser-printed page carries traces of it into circulation.3 Multiply that across millions of pages per school district or university campus, and it’s easy to see how a routine office process adds up to a lot of plastic.
The Plastic Footprint You Can’t See
Plastic pollution isn’t just about bottles and bags. The tiny toner particles used in laser printing contribute to the overall problem of plastic pollution that the United Nations calls one of today’s most important environmental crises.4 While schools recycle paper and use energy-efficient lighting, the laser printers that are quietly melting plastic onto paper often go unnoticed. That’s where a shift in printing technology can deliver meaningful progress — not through complex infrastructure changes, but through smarter equipment choices.
Epson PrecisionCore® Heat-Free Technology: High-Speed Toner-Free Printing
represents a fundamental change in how printing works. Instead of melting plastic toner powder, it uses chip-based precision to place ink onto paper — no heat, no fuser, and no energy wasted waiting for warm-up. The result: dramatic electricity savings, and far less plastic used in the printing process. For example, in third-party lab testing the Epson AM-C5000 used up to 86% less power than comparable laser copiers.5
Where laser printers convert electricity into heat, Epson’s Heat-Free models convert it into output — a far more efficient process. This print technology, which has been used in some of the most demanding commercial and industrial applications for decades, is now available in high-speed printer and copier models, so schools finally have a choice when they are ready to reevaluate their printer and copier fleets. And a simpler process can also lead to less maintenance, fewer parts to replace, and less downtime.
Case in Point: Saline Area Schools
When Michigan’s Saline Area Schools decided to modernize their fleet of more than 50 printers across seven facilities, energy use was a top concern. Jay Grossman, the district’s Director of Technology, realized that simply replacing laser printers with newer lasers would miss a key opportunity.
“After meeting with Printer Source Plus, we looked at each other in agreement — there was no way we could stay with our existing [laser] fleet given everything that Epson has to offer,” said Grossman.
By switching to Epson’s WorkForce® Enterprise Heat-Free models, the district eliminated plastic toner and cut energy use — while maintaining the print speeds and reliability teachers expected. Over four months and nearly two million pages printed, the district proved what many energy managers are starting to discover: the copy room might hold your next sustainability win.
Beyond Energy: Rethinking Fleet Efficiency
Many organizations — especially schools and government facilities — are also realizing they simply have too many devices. Printing volumes have dropped dramatically as workflows have gone digital, yet outdated lease renewals often keep oversized fleets in place.
That’s why Epson developed an assessment tool – originally designed to estimate potential energy savings – that also helps districts model scenarios to right-size their printer and copier fleets, based on a given monthly print volume. By identifying which devices are truly necessary — and which can be consolidated — districts can cut costs and reduce their total energy draw even further.
A Proven Path to Progress
Epson’s commitment to designing innovative and sustainable solutions isn’t new — it’s been part of the company’s DNA for over 80 years. As a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact since 2004, Epson supports all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. The company’s “Sho-Sho-Sei” design philosophy — meaning efficient, compact, and precise — continues to guide product innovation. As a member of RE100, Epson transitioned to renewably sourced electricity in 2023, and their approved 2050 Net Zero target and milestones are based on the Net-Zero Standard of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).6
That commitment has earned recognition from organizations like CDP (2024 Climate A List) and EcoVadis (6 consecutive Platinum or Gold ratings). But perhaps more meaningful is the impact being seen in schools and businesses where energy and cost savings are real, immediate, and measurable.
Finding the Next Easy Win
For sustainability and energy professionals, finding new areas for measurable savings gets harder every year. Lighting is efficient, HVAC is optimized, and most buildings are already operating near peak efficiency. That’s why the copy room represents such a unique opportunity. It’s often overlooked, yet it holds an easy, quantifiable win that supports both budget and environmental goals. With Epson Heat-Free printing, there’s no trade-off between performance and responsibility — it’s a better process that simply uses less.
It’s time to bring printing back onto the radar — not simply as a cost center, but as a potential for the next sustainability success story.
Learn more at Epson.com/heat-free-inkjet-printers
————-
1 “Plug & Process Loads,” Better Buildings
2 “Impacts of Plastic Pollution,” EPA
3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130864
4 “World Environment Day: UN sounds alarm on plastic pollution crisis,” UN News
5 Keypoint Intelligence Comparative Waste Generation and User Intervention Performance Evaluation, Epson WorkForce Enterprise AM-C5000 Inkjet Device vs. Competitive Laser Devices 2023.
