Do you think about the environment?

Well, I suppose we all are...to some extend at least.

My guess would be that we all become more aware of what is going on with the increased frequency of ads and campaigns.

Many of us are still in the habit of printing out our emails, just in case we want to reference it later. Do we really need to?

You too could make a difference and provide your contribution by adding a small item to the bottom of  your emails. How about it?

I am certain that you might have seen this subtle reminder on the email signature of one of your contacts. It's a tree with a winding road, and a message: "Please consider the environment before printing this email." I believe this ever so subtle guilt-trip has saved at least several reams of paper so far.

If your email program can handle rich text or html, then you can have the complete signature. The picture of the tree that is being used in this case is actually the letter P using the Webdings font. Then, simply write the message and make the whole thing green. Now you are all set!

Even better, you can also simply copy and paste the enclosed into your signature.

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

I have done the same and have already noticed some others who added the same string to their emails.

"Just one more way you can help go Beyond the Paper!"

-Volker

Comments

[Dwarf Sibling]

Is there some analysis on this actually saving the environment vs. back-firing?

No one (and I think it really is 'no one') takes this into account when deciding to print or not - the only effect will be another 6000 bytes of energy/environmental (transmission and storage) impact on every email received AND since it has no effect on the print-decision, people will still print emails with the same frequency as before, it will just be more likely to run onto a second and blank page which will be thrown away.

I'm all for eliminating paper, but it should be for the right reasons (efficiency, built-in-document-intelligence, cost-savings, etc...) which eliminate more paper in aggregate and not as part of some zero-sum exchange of -10 env-impact on one side and +11 env-impact on the other because it 'seems' like it would help.

Want to eliminate rampant waste of trees? Provide a link which people can use to be removed from mailing lists.

[Dave Hoder]

I changed my green tag from "printing this email" to "printing any documents". Printing paper documents drives me up the wall. It's just one more way to get a disconnected snapshot in time instead of viewing the one version of the truth. People also tend to print a several page report every day, only to throw it away and re-print the next day. Using the free DWF printer and Autodesk Design Review, users have the ability to print an electronic version and check-off lists, etc. without printing anything. It would be nice to see opacity built into the line tool though so it could be used as a highliter.

[Christine]

It's amazing how small things like an email signature with an eco-friendly message can make a big difference.

A big percentage of the paper produced is consumed by the paper catalog industry. Every year the catalog industry sends out billions of unwanted catalogs, cutting millions of trees in the process. Worst part being that most of these catalogs have no recycled content and land straight into the trash without ever being read.

We thought that we needed to provide the catalog industry with an eco-friendly alternative to the paper catalog or they would go on cutting the trees.

After several months of effort we came up with http://www.ecatalogcreator.com

eCatalog Creator is a digital publishing service which converts the expensive paper catalog into an eco-friendly low cost flash catalog. It's good to see that catalogers are willing to switch to this new eco-friendly alternative.

Glad that we are doing our bit to save the trees, and helping others to do the same.

[ecatalog]

For enterprise ecatalog solutions, check out http://www.syndeca.com

[Claire]

Hi my name is Claire
thanx for the info cuz im doing a school prodject and about the environment