Everyone knows that reducing paper usage is good for the environment – it decreases landfill waste, saves energy and reduces carbon dioxide release.  But equally important, it can save your company time, money and streamline processes and workflows.  Because of all of these reasons, Corporation Service Company (CSC) has developed several industry-leading technologies that facilitate companies in adopting automated, paperless workflows.  By using our services, customers have reduced the unnecessary paper that is cluttering their lives, clogging their workflows, and hurting their bottom lines.

In the last several years alone CSC helped clients reduce paper usage by over 40 million sheets of paper.  This reduction in paper usage saved 4,800 trees, prevented the carbon release of 800,000 pounds, and eliminated power usage of 600,000 kilowatt-hours – enough to power 52 homes for an entire year. 
Following are Five Environmentally-friendly services from CSC:

1. DealRoom & DealRoom Order Results
   CSC DealRoom is a web-based deal management platform that enables you to receive documents electronically into a customizable deal workspace to collaborate with outside counsel, and manage, organize and close deals more efficiently.  It is a highly secure environment for you to manage critical data, tasks and deal documents.  You have access to fully customized workflows, checklists, task assignments with alerts, along with comprehensive reporting and audit tools.  The result is a streamlined and collaborative platform designed to help you mitigate risk and reduce costs throughout the deal process — all of which will help facilitate your transactions while using substantially less paper. 
   
   With CSC DealRoom Order Results you can have all of your transactional orders delivered to a centralized, online workspace.  You can customize email alerts so you are notified whenever an order is completed.  For no additional cost, you can have access to your order results 24/7, for up to six months, through CSC DealRoom Order Results.



2. Paperless Service of Process
   For nearly 100 years, the registered agent business changed little – agents received, processed and forwarded through the mail service of process on behalf of their clients.  In 2005, however, CSC became the first registered agent to scan 100% of service of process and electronically forward it to clients through CSC SameDay SOP^sm—saving clients time and money and significantly reducing paper usage.
   
   With this free service from CSC, you will receive service of process days sooner.  And quicker delivery means you have more time to respond to important legal documents—resulting in better outcomes and lower legal expenses.  Your service of process is retained (and never purged) on our online platform—helping increase the visibility of service of process receipt and handling in your organization. 
   
   Over 80% of our customers already receive service of process electronically. Click here to join them.



3. Matter Management and E-Billing
   
   Companies increasingly use CSC Matter Management to automate their workflows and manage their legal matters more effectively.  They reduce paper usage and storage costs by storing all their documents in one secure forum.  In place of ad hoc, paper processes, you can manage documents online, collaborate with internal and external users, assign tasks with deadlines, and develop custom reports.  You can use our platform to manage litigation, contracts, real estate, trademarks, subpoenas, garnishments, among other things.  According to a recent study*, companies that use a matter management system can save an average of 8% on their outside counsel spending.
   
   Companies that also use an e-billing system can save an additional 8-10% on their outside counsel spending*.  With CSC E-Billing, you can realize substantial savings through improvements in billing workflows, automating the invoice approval process, and identifying billing errors.  Additional savings are realized by integrating the e-billing system with your accounts payable system thus eliminating data entry of invoice information.



4. XML Stream
   By using CSC XML Stream, you can eliminate manual data entry and paper process costs.  This service automates the delivery of service of process and matter management data and documents directly into any third-party or custom software application.  This enables you to leverage existing technologies by facilitating the secure transfer of data and electronic documents without the need to print paper or manually input data or documents. 



5. Entity Management
   When creating CSC Entity Management, we had the goal in mind of completely eliminating the paper handling of entity information.  Because our entity management platform includes document storage and disaster recovery, you can eliminate paper copies of your valuable corporate documents with us.  CSC further helps you ‘go green’ by scanning and storing copies of company minute books.
   
   Because CSC Entity Management is fully integrated with our transactional orders, managing entity information is made easy.  When you place a transactional order with CSC impacting your entities, CSC captures this information and automatically updates your entity information in CSC Entity Management.  This helps you keep entity information current and accurate, saving you time and money. 

Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 with CSC.  Attend our web seminar highlighting ways for your company to go green while cutting costs.  Using her firm's Legally Green initiative as a case study, special guest Carolyn Kaplan, Counsel and Chief Sustainability Officer, Nixon Peabody LLP, will explore how your company can lower your impact on the environment with particular emphasis on sustainability guidelines that have been developed by the ABA and various state bar associations.  The webinar will also discuss ways to implement a paperless workflow.

To learn more about any of the CSC products featured in this article, click here.

*2007 ACC/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey