This year marks the 40^th anniversary of EarthDay, celebrating and raising awareness of our natural surroundings and theimportance of sustainability.  Wonderinghow to celebrate this popular, nationally-observed day?  One way you can, on Earth Day and any otherday, is to use electronic billing.

Put simply, SmartPay is a green choice because it savespaper.  However, there is more to thissimple fact than appears at the surface. Let’s consider everything that goes into the process of traditional,paper-ridden billing and payment.

As we learn from a young age, paper comes from trees. Yetover 70% of the trees used to make paper are not trees grown in tree farms forthat purpose[1].  Instead, these trees are forest-harvested,chopped down from their natural ecological and biological habitats. In turn,these trees take away the health of the environment, as well as for otherplants and animals.  The papermanufacturing industry is also the third-largest user of fossil fuels aroundthe world[2]and is the single largest industry in its amount of water consumption[3].

Emissions from vehicles also must factor into this equation,since vehicles are used to transport the original paper itself, as well asbills and invoices.  As the end user notonly receives their bill or invoice online but also pays online, vehicleemissions are further reduced because a run to the post office, bank, or bothis cut out from the process.

With Americans using over 85 million tons of paper per year[4],the impact on the environment proves to be a substantial one.

And all of this is simply skimming the surface; that’s notto consider other elements of traditional billing, such as the number ofresources needed for ink for the invoices and bills, nor the paper used forenvelopes.  A change in the way you doyour billing and payment means a change in the amount of paper used anddemanded yearly, which means a change in the state of the overall environment.

On this Earth Day, choose to celebrate by considering achange in your daily lifestyle.  Chooseelectronic billing and payment.  Theenvironment will thank you.