Why You Need To Make Green Financial Choices
Making green financial choices doesn’t mean that it is going to cost you money, in fact it might help you save money in the long-term. It makes sense to look for the greener options in everything you do and that includes taking care of your money and where you choose to spend or invest it, taking care of the environment is part of those decisions you make. In the bigger picture, you will save more money and this is great for making your money work harder and smarter for you.
Going Green with Your Financial Choices
Going green is better for the environment; this is not a new movement, but gaining popularity, looking for ways to recycle and to not waste products by just throwing them away. However, there is more to going green than you might realize, the choices you make every day will have an impact on the environment and by picking the right choices you can help protect the planet that we live on, for future generations.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that going green means it is going to cost you, in fact it could save you time and money. A face-to-face meeting could be replaced with a conference video call, this will mean that you don’t have to travel to the meeting, nor wait for the staff before discussing the issues that are affecting you. If you choose a video conference call, there are no travel costs, parking expenses and the time needed for travel before and after the meeting, when you have to consider the time taken getting to and from the appointment.
Choosing a power company that looks at ways to produce the electricity they provide as green as possible, it might be harnessing the sun, wind farms and even waves generated power. All these options are greener than burning fossil fuels to create the electricity that we use. Whilst not necessarily a financial choice, who supplies your financial institutes power can help to reduce your own financial carbon footprint and is something to consider when choosing a financial provider; is the company making efforts to reduce their own consumption and do they have a green policy for employees to follow?
Consumer Rights
As consumers, we have the right to push these greener products to the forefront of the industry, to demand that more needs doing to protect the planet and not at a cost to the consumer. The more demand that there is for greener products in the financial sector, then companies will have no option but to provide these.
Financial services that are currently helping the planet include:
- Paperless statements.
- Internet access to accounts.
- While debit cards are great at using less actual money, meaning fewer needs, replacing the newer payment options using your phones is even more exciting and potential to reduce the amount of plastic used in creating debit cards.
What more could be achieved:
- Conference calls, so you can see the person you are talking to, reducing the need to visit the branch.
- Ensuring that all financial establishments are actively seeking to reduce the waste they produce by investing more in the paperless office systems.
- Improving the current internet banking systems, making them more user-friendly and reducing the carbon footprint that they currently produce.
We are constantly looking at ways at home in which we are more green and doing more for the environment by ensuring that we are recycling, conserving energy and harnessing the natural resources that are freely available, like the sun and reducing electrical consumption.
By demanding that the financial choices that we make are good for the future of the planet, is important. It is about making those businesses choices that are looking for ways to go green, to improve the services that they offer. However, this will only happen if we as consumers are looking for the green option when considering a new financial product or service; check for details like paperless statements and greener payment options, like smartphone payment apps.
Therefore, if you are looking at new financial products make sure they offer green options to help save the planet for the future generations.
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I try to go paperless now as much as possible.
I used to print off invoices from utility companies then realised I was wasting time and paper. Now I just download them and store digitally
There is no point printing them off if you don’t need to!