Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Yes we can (save trees and money at the same time..)!

We bring you from time to time examples from the business sector of new initiatives that save both trees and money. Today we have another such win-win plan - this time it's DHL.

According to its press release, which I read about at Environmental Leader, DHL plans to eliminate over one third of the 18 million paper invoices it sends out across Europe annually by 2010, thus saving approximately 2400 trees and 600 tonnes of C02 each year. DHL customers using the e-Billing service no longer need to receive their invoices on paper. They simply login to an online portal to view and approve them electronically.

DHL worked for the last two years on developing their e-billing capabilites with
Accountis, a division of Fundtech. Peter Radcliffe, Executive Chairman of Accountis, said in the release: "Accountis enables organisations like DHL to achieve their green objectives by implementing a more sustainable technology. The paper invoicing process consumes vast quantities of energy and produces huge volumes of waste which is unacceptable in this day and age, especially when an alternative is readily available."

He is definitely right and not only that it doesn't make sense due to the environmental impacts of the paper invoicing, it also doesn't make sense from a bottom-line perspective. The release itself does not relate to the savings DHL will gain out of this plan, but it's quite unlikely that DHL won't gain money out of it. And that's even without taking into consideration future expenses with regards to the CO2 emissions associated with the paper invoices.


All in all, this is a very positive step and I hope that eventually e-billing will replace 100% of DHL's 18 million paper invoices, saving more trees, emissions and money to the company.


Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

www.ecolibris.net