I recently came across an interesting concept sponsored by the NACHA folks -- the PayItGreen Alliance. The PayItGreen Alliance is a coalition of financial services companies that is committed to educating consumers and businesses about the positive environmental impact of choosing electronic payments, bills, and statements instead of paper. They encourage consumers to turn off the paper in their financial lives - specifically to use direct deposit, receive bills and financial statements electronically, and make payments electronically.
How do electronic payments benefit the environment?
Switching to electronic payments would make a big environmental impact. Every year, paper checks use more than 674 million gallons of fuel and add more than 3.6 million tons of greenhouse gases to the environment. This amount includes the cost to cut, transport and mill paper; fuels used to cut, transport and mill paper; printing and delivering boxes of checks to consumers; and taking, clearing, and settling check payments, as well as returning checks to consumers in monthly account statements.
How do electronic bills and statements benefit the environment?
In 2006, 19 billion bills - 533 million pounds of paper - were delivered to American households [U.S. Postal Service]. It requires an estimated 235 million gallons of fossil fuels to transport this much paper,
resulting in more than 1.3 million tons of CO2 emissions [Dove Consulting, December 2007].
