Ecotricity Explains: The environmental impact of a letter
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How often do you think about your carbon footprint? If you’re anything like us, the answer is quite often. That’s why we do everything we can to reduce our impact on the environment. You can read about our environmental footprint on our website too.
As part of our environmental efforts, we prefer to be paperless – whether we’re sending bills, information about tariffs or confirming changes to your payments. If you have an email address on your account, make sure your account is set up to be paperless, so we automatically send you everything by email. If you’re not sure, just get in touch – you can call us on 0345 555 7100 or email home@ecotricity.co.uk
But what’s the environmental impact of sending a letter instead of an email?
The average carbon footprint of an email is 4g CO2e, but this can rise to 19g if it includes an attachment or is a long email. It also depends on the device it was sent from, the data centres which store and facilitate the emails, and the device the recipient is using, but it’s far less than that of a letter.
In comparison, a standard letter sized envelope is responsible for around 29g of CO2. This takes into account the production of materials, including the paper, envelope, oil and ink, as well as the sending, sorting and distribution of the letter.
Go paperless and cut your carbon footprint
Opting to go green and receive your bills and communication by email rather than post is one step you can take to cut your carbon footprint.
There are a number of other ways to cut your carbon footprint:
Switch to a green energy supplier
Walk or take public transport where possible
Shop consciously and make a meal plan – you can reduce food waste by only buying what you need, when you need it
Draught-proof and insulate your home – you'll prevent heat escaping, making your home more energy efficient and cheaper to heat.
Do more with your online account
We recently launched our new app and online account for customers, giving you the power to do more without having to contact us and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time.
From managing your payments, including setting up or changing your Direct Debit, keeping your contact details up to date and adding approved contacts to your account, you can now do more without having to contact us. Not only does this free up your time, so you’re not sitting on the end of the phone waiting to get through when we’re busy or waiting for a response to your email, but it also means our team can dedicate their time to fixing complex issues more quickly and efficiently.
We hope that nothing goes wrong with your energy account, but if it does, it’s important that we put things right promptly and properly.
Ready to start turning your bills into mills?
Switch to Ecotricity and we’ll use your bill money to build new sources of renewable energy and build a greener Britain.
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