Even the most adamant detractors of global warming appreciate the value of a nice tree. Before I moved into the sterile sanctuary of my new subdivision where the tallest tree on the street is a scrawny 11-foot maple with branches as thin as Cat-5 cable, I had a back yard shaded completely by a single 70-foot wide 35-foot high Chinese elm. I loved that tree. Did all sorts of things under it. Neighbor said it was a locus. He also said that scar across his forehead was an old war wound. Looked like the tracks from a broken beer bottle to me.

Either way, he liked my tree, too. And thanks in part to Al Gore, people are thinking a lot these days about trees and the environment in general. Is that giving too much credit to Al Gore? Of course it is, but he likes it that way, and that's not really the point. The point is people have been thinking about the environment for a long time, even business people. However, only recently have they begun to talk about it, especially business people.

They are talking not necessarily because they have had a come-to-Al moment and suddenly grew an environmental conscience, but because the environment is no longer a business taboo. The reason it is no longer taboo is not because everyone else is talking about it so that makes it OK; it is no longer taboo because there is a legitimate business benefit to being green. And that is the only way changes get made regarding social issues such as the environment. Hand wringing doesn't do it. Environmental terrorism doesn't do it. Unfortunately, even good science doesn't do it. Economics makes things happen.

And so it is that the environment has become an acceptable tool for service providers to put the hard sell on paperless billing.

By the end of this month, BT will have one million customers using paper-free billing. The company even went so far as to have 250,000 saplings planted around the U.K., filling up more than 450 acres. This is no global warming backlash. This saves telecom carriers about $20 per customer per year. At 30 million access lines, that's $600 million annually just to BT. Those kinds of economics make things happen.

Forrester Research said in its January 2007 report "EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment) Forecast: 2006 to 2011" that 38% of online households paid bills online in 2005. By 2011, the firm expects 63% will do so. And a 2007 Consumer Bill Payment Survey showed that online bill payments have now exceeded bill payments made by paper check among households with online access. In addition to the paper bills mailed to customers, the volume of checks sent through the mail to pay them fell 4% to 34% of the overall volume.

A couple of weeks ago, touting that 6 million of its customers were "flocking" to the option of paying their bills with credits cards, Verizon said, "With nearly 30 million home customer accounts, the environmental impact of more paperless billing will be significant." Last year, Verizon saved more than 400 tons of paper as a result of the program.

How many trees does that save? For Verizon it was about 6,300 last year, but who cares. We will no longer have to worry our little heads over that or make that argument. As the economics of paperless billing kick in for service providers, they will have done their part. Just knowing their industry is contributing less and less to that particular environmental issue will help those in telecommunications who are concerned sleep more soundly at night. Now if everyone had the pleasure of sleeping beneath a 70-foot-wide, 35-foot-high Chinese elm, what a wonderful world it would be.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@telephonyonline.com.