Banking Is Murder? The Industry’s Nefarious Quest For Paper-Free Finances
Author: Nick
Category: Money
Topics: banking
If you’ve ever received a bank statement or credit card bill, or if you’ve ever mailed a check to pay a bill, then you killed a tree to get the job done. Well, you may not have directly chopped down that tree, but your demand for paper was enough to sentence that poor oak or pine to its unnatural demise.
At least that’s the story that banks want you to believe. You may have noticed recently that your banks and credit card companies have been pushing products like paperless statements and billing. Usually that push will be accompanied by a message urging you to think of the impact that your three-page monthly statement has on the environment. For example, consider this recent advertisement seen by certain Chase customers:
Some financial institutions are so dedicated in their mission to save our forests that they’ll even chip in their own cash to help make it happen. Bank of America recently announced its plan to encourage users to switch to paper-free banking.
When you stop your monthly paper checking, savings or money market account statement, Bank of America will acknowledge your efforts by donating $1 to The Nature Conservancy’s reforestation programs.
Obviously if you choose to continue receiving paper statements and bills, then you’re just a filthy tree murderer, right? No, more like absolutely wrong.
Paper isn’t threatening our forests, and there will still be plenty of trees if you continue receiving paper bank statements. Here are some facts you may not know about how paper is made.
- Most paper doesn’t come from trees. Well, it does, but not directly from trees. Instead, much of our paper supply is made from wood chips and sawdust left from other wood manufacturing.
- One tree dies, two take its place. For every tree harvested, two others are planted. Timber companies, as evil as they may seem, do a great job keeping our forests going. I call this the 2-for-1 rule.
- Paper trees are born paper trees. Just like farms which grow crops, trees are planted and harvested in special tree farms. Reducing your paper use won’t save these trees from death; they just wouldn’t be planted in the first place.
In short, use all the paper you want. If we all stopped using paper today, we’d have fewer trees in 20 years since there wouldn’t be timber companies planting more trees than they cut down. As strange as it sounds, because of the 2-for-1 rule, you are helping the environment by using paper.
So if bank statements don’t equate to the utter annihilation of our world’s forests, then why are banks pushing for you to “do the right thing” and cut back on your paper usage? Come on… think hard…
Yes! Paper still costs banks money! It costs them money to print statements. It costs them money to mail those statements to you. How much does it cost banks to send your statement to you over the internet instead? Virtually nothing. That’s why you’ll sometimes see banks offer you bribes for your switch to paperless; they’ll make that money back in no time.
So don’t let those seemingly tree-hugging banks fool you into going paper-free. Those monthly statements create jobs for timber workers, postal employees, and countless other people. The paper they use does not devastate our forests. And you can be sure that you’ll never see any of the money banks may save if you go paperless.
Want further evidence that banks and credit card companies are only in this for the money? Check out Chase’s post-payment instructions from their website:
So Chase doesn’t mind asking you to kill your own trees, but don’t you dare touch any of theirs.
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37 Responses »
1.
Mike
September 5th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Some points of discussion:
1. What about other countries who have metropolitan areas, but are mostly agricultural (China, India)…do they have replanting laws?
2. What about the nutrients that growing trees deplete from the soil? Older trees are still growing, but are in maintenance-mode. This is also an issue when people tout the benefits of E85 fuel. Yeah, you can keep growing corn, but the water table that feeds a majority of the midwest is at risk of drying up in 20-30 years. Add all that extra growth and production and it could be sooner.
2.
Tony Alaimo
September 5th, 2006 at 11:12 am
I agree that banks clearly want to save money as their first objective and could probably care less about saving a tree. By them donating a dollar in your name, they are able to write it off on their BS as goodwill to offset payment of taxes or gains of some sort. I do not think that we should get wreckless however with clearcutting and chopping any tree possible, because I don’t think trees are replanted even half the time and with the latest housing boom, houses have been built in almost every available nook and cranny of certain forest areas.
3.
empty spaces
September 12th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
So which timber companies do you recommend?
Harvard, which has the largest endowment of any college[$25 billion] recently invested a large chunck of money in timber companies.
4.
Alan Smithee
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 am
If my bank or credit card company really wanted me to go paperless, they would credit my account for the .39 savings they get each month not having to mail out a statement.
5.
Art
February 18th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I’m always amazed when someone actually falls for a large corporation’s marketing ploy. Large companies strive for efficiency in operations since efficiency saves the company a lot of money. Its far more efficient for a company to send out electronic statments that it is to send paper statments; the savings isn’t merely paper and postage. Its time, testing, employees, programming effort, printers, depreciation of assets. You can bet they’re not concerned with the poor trees when so much efficiency is at stake!
6.
David
March 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Your argument, while intriguing, is awfully simplistic.
What about the fuel used and pollution generated from delivering paper mail or from the delivery of giant rolls of paper stock to companies for printing statements? What about the ink used in printing? Isn’t there benefit to reducing all that which you aren’t accounting for?
What about the landfill space taken up by unnecessary paper waste? Or the chemicals used to bleach paper? Or the fuel used to run the machinery that manufactures paper? Where is your accounting for that?
What about customers who want to go paperless but didn’t realize that a company offered it? Don’t they get value out of this marketing?
And regardless of whether a company saves money when customers go paperless — what is so bad about that if it results in donations to worthy non-profit organizations? Many of these organizations are dependent on corporate programs like these to generate a large portion of their operating funds. Isn’t this a better outcome than if the company offered no incentive?
It sounds like you work for a paper company. Your view is highly unbalanced.
7.
someone
April 16th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
You might be right that banks are pushing paperless for their own cost reduction (which btw is not necessarily a bad thing by itself).
I personally am completely paperless because I find it much easier to manage paperless records. All my statements and records are in PDF that I can edit and shuffle like real pages without any hassles (the latest mac os version has this capability inbuilt which is a huge timesaver for me, previously I had to edit them using script). It’s easier to store and search, no humungous file folders containing records from decades ago – it’s all in a few DVD copies. It’s amazing. Maybe the banks should push this benefit instead.
You may say that I’m being selfish by using less paper, but I do buy magazines regularly as well as read books, so I’m still helping plant more trees
.
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May 3rd, 2009 at 5:39 am
It is really a nice post, its always great reading such posts, this post is good in regards of both knowledge as well as information. Thanks for the post.
9.
John
January 27th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Maybe somebody should point out that the internet, servers, fiber optic cabling, hardrives, backup services, and server farms in general consume massive amounts of resources.
10.
Limo Dan
April 5th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I own an ECO firendly car and limousine company and we know that FOR SURE that not everyone can use tactics like these. We know that our Banks, attorneys and Doctors do not comply here in Arizona to use this manipulation for reasons we wont go into. There is a lot of cost evidence and negative feedback to last us for years. More people should be ECO tolerant, believe me.
11.
consolidate credit debt
October 9th, 2010 at 5:13 am
I do accept some of the facts mentioned around the making of paper but the 2-for-1 rule is not convincing. Also I think paper should be used where necessary and gotten rid of where it becomes redundant. Doing things just to create jobs is not wise. Innovation should take care of jobs.
We should not cling to the past or present because we will stagnate.
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November 17th, 2010 at 7:39 am
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ian Lifshitz
April 5th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Does anyone have any recent statistics on the use of paper in banking?
19.
Paperless Real Estate
April 12th, 2011 at 1:40 am
Nick:
The 2-1 rules applies but what is the impact of clear cutting? The devastation on wildlife, soil etc. Are the 2 freshly planted trees equivalent to a 50 your old tree?
I don’t have any facts on tree replacement but I would appreciate your thoughts.
Steve
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August 22nd, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Some financial institutions are so dedicated in their mission to save our forests that they’ll even chip in their own cash to help make it happen. Property Marbella
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November 22nd, 2011 at 4:25 am
I agree that banks clearly want to save money as their first objective. I must appreciate the Bank of America for their incredible work in favor of nature. Thanks.
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January 1st, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Will we see reduced health insurance premiums as a result of the company-wide smoking ban? Probably not, considering all those smokers who will continue to light up at other businesses. The company may be able to use the new smoke-free policy to negotiate its health care premiums down in future years, but I suspect employees won’t see any of the benefits in their share of the costs.
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