A 14-year old Pennsylvania teenager, Suvir Mirchandani, discovered that the usage of the font 'Garamond' can reduce paper and ink consumption. He found that if his school district uses Garamond, it can reduce ink consumption by 24% and thus annually save $21,000. He attempted to convince the government to adopt Garamond. The government has an annual printing expenditure of $1.8 billion. Suvir concluded that if the federal government strictly uses Garamond, it can save $136 million per year. If state governments join the initiative, an additional $234 million can be saved per year as well. Imagine where that money could be better used!
According to CNN, "Gary Somerset, media and public relations manager at the Government Printing Office, describes Suvir's work as "remarkable." But he was noncommittal on whether the GPO would introduce changes to typeface, saying the GPO's efforts to become more environmentally sustainable were focused on shifting content to the Web."
We need to change that by re-addressing the issue to the U.S. Government Printing Office because not only will this SIMPLE, EASY initiative save millions of dollars, it will reduce paper consumption, which takes a toll on our environment.
