Establishment of A Green Records Management Programme At Town Council Of Othaya, Nyeri County, Kenya

Abstract

The study examined the establishment of a green records management programme at Town Council of Othaya. The main objectives of the study were to determine the awareness of green records management by the staff, identify the current state of records in relation to sustainability of records management, to establish strategies and tools that Town Council of Othaya would consider, establish the benefits accrued to implementation of Green Records Management, to identify the challenges related to Green Records Management and recommend measures to curb those challenges. The sample of ten respondents was selected, eight of whom were office staffs,and one was the administrative officer while another one was the establishment officer. The respondents were systematically selected and both qualitative and quantitative were used in the study. The main data collection methods that guided this research were the questionnaire method, interview and observations. The major findings included the awareness on Green records Management which was very low, the current state of records in relation to Green Records Management which was not very effective, strategies and tools of Green Records Management like scanning, recycling, use of environmentally friendly products, use of Portable document formats. The challenges of Green Records Management were inadequate finances, lack of support from the administration, lack of knowledge and skills. The study concludes that Town Council of Othaya has not translated effective implementation of Green Records Management and that the most dominant tools of Green Records Management are use of environmentally friendly products and PDFs which translates to the fact that the organization had not fully realized the potential tools of Green Records Management. The study recommends that organizations should facilitate an participate in forums, conferences and workshops to help in sharing knowledge in Green Records Management, organizations should also develop clear guidelines on the sustainability of the Records Management lifecycle and subject the Green Records Management processes to monitoring and evaluation.