Come on operators - ditch the paper bills!

Posted by Paul Lambert Friday, November 7th, 2008

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More and more people in the industry are talking about how important it is to reduce the impact that telecoms companies are having on the environment. But saving the environment is easier spoken about than done. And in this area as much as in any other, actions speak louder than words.

It’s great that developments in technology are reducing the environmental impact of telecoms infrastructure. It’s also great that new approaches to base station energy production, such as wind power, are increasingly taken seriously, especially in rural areas in emerging markets.

But there is one incredibly obvious measure operators could take en masse but which has so far been largely ignored: dramatically reduce the number of trees operators are responsible for cutting down.

How?

It’s very simple.

Operators can ask their customers to opt-in to receive monthly paper bills, and charge a small premium for them to do so: for instance, in the UK, £0.50-£1 (US$0.78-US$1.6) per month to receive a paper bill.

If a customer doesn’t want a paper bill then he or she can provide an email address for the bill to be sent to in, say, PDF format. Or, a customer could be sent an SMS notifying him or her when their bill is ready, and they could then log-in to their account via the operator’s website to view the bill.

Some telecoms companies, such as Virgin Media, have already done this, proving both the concept and how incredibly easy it is to do.

It would also promote traffic to operators’ websites, providing them an opportunity to advertise other products etc. But this isn’t the reason they should do it, and the principle goal should always be kept in mind: to reduce paper use, not to shove marketing and advertising messages in front of customers. And let’s not have spam to phones/ inboxes as a result of opting out of paper bills.

Every month I receive a four-five page mobile phone bill that goes straight into the recycling bin after a quick check. Multiply that number by several tens of millions over twelve months and you have a lot of trees needlessly cut down every year.

If telecoms companies forced their customers to opt-in to receive a monthly paper bill, they would not only save themselves money, they’d also save lots of trees. This really would improve their green credentials and their actions would actually help the environment.