Council phasing out printed agendas for trees’ sake

A successful initiative to reduce costs and paper use by switching to electronic meetings agendas is being extended to Christchurch’s libraries and service centres.

Three years ago Christchurch City Council made the decision to stop providing elected members with printed meeting agendas, issuing them instead with digital devices which they could use to access agendas and make notes on.

That move has saved the use of about 3.5 million sheets of paper and about $300,000 in reduced printing, binding and distribution costs.

The Council though has still been providing printed agendas for the public to browse at the city’s libraries and service centres.

That practice will end from Monday, 2 March. The agendas will still be available in electronic form.

“At the moment we provide paper copies of meeting agendas and minutes at all Council libraries and service centres, where members of the public can browse them. These copies are not widely read and it costs about $30,000 to print and distribute them annually,’’ says Christchurch City Council Head of Community Support, Governance and Partnerships John Filsell.

 “With all our agendas and minutes now readily available online and relatively easy to access for most of our residents, we are phasing out these physical copies and encouraging people to view them electronically.’’

Mr Filsell says the change will be promoted to customers at all libraries and service centres, where staff will be available to show people how they can access the information online.

Printed copies of agendas will still be available for the public at actual meetings.

“As an organisation we are working hard to cut our paper use. It is a small but important way we can help mitigate some of the impacts of climate change. The less paper we can use as an organisation, the smaller our carbon footprint.’’