The purple one is now saving trees thanks to its eco-friendly, paper-free policy Estate agents, and lettings agents in particular, tend to accumulate a significant amount of paperwork across their offices. For example, lettings agents need to keep copies of tenants’ identification and references through to gas safety certificates and tenancy agreements, together with all the relevant paperwork for several years. So how does an agency with four estate and lettings branches across Hertfordshire, a property management team and a land and new homes team find space to store all this necessary paperwork? Answer? It doesn’t.

Having been selling, letting and managing properties in Hertfordshire for more than eight years, the head office of Imagine in Watford was overflowing with filing cabinets, and its ever-expanding land and new homes team meant the group was also running out of space for its staff.

Thanks to modern technology, Imagine doesn’t store papers in the traditional sense anymore, they’re all scanned and stored as data files. Once the files have been scanned, the paperwork is then securely shredded and sent for recycling. By implementing this green strategy, Imagine has already saved six trees this year from just one department.

Does this mean that it’s now impossible for the agents to find a particular page in a file? Far from it.

The scanning system used means that all papers are now searchable by keywords. You can type in ‘Gatcombe Court’ and ‘reference’ and all the relevant reference pages for those apartments will be available to view, print and/or email, as required.

Glenn Smith, director of the Imagine St Albans branch, says: “We’re still your purple estate and lettings agency in St Albans but we’re now green too. Wherever possible, we support local businesses and have used the services of St Albans Chamber of Commerce members, Humphreys Plus, to undertake this confidential shredding and scanning project.”

For more information about Imagine estate and lettings agents, call 01727 893000 or visit imagine-group.co.uk