We all get far too much mail, especially from financial services companies. Credit card companies alone send billions of pieces of paper mail each year, and most of that gets thrown right into the trash can. Not only does this dynamic pose a threat from a fraud perspective – trash cans and mailboxes can be treasure troves for opportunistic fraudsters – but you have to figure the effect on the environment isn’t great either. Paper products aren’t as bad as most materials, according to North Carolina State University Professor Richard Venditti, because they’re renewable, recyclable and biodegradable and they motivate land owners to plant trees. However, Venditti says, “inefficient use of paper does consume resources and have an impact on the environment.” While credit card direct mail is on the rise after hitting a two-year low in April 2012, long-term trends suggest a declining role for traditional paper mail in the years to come. Not only are financial services companies increasingly offering paperless options to their account holders – even charging extra for paper statements, but they’re also learning how to better leverage digital means for marketing purposes. These changes are largely based on the shifting preferences of the modern consumer as well as the overall technicalization of modern commerce – not some newfound corporate altruism – but does it really matter?
We all get far too much mail, especially from financial services companies. Credit card companies alone send billions of pieces of paper mail each year, and most of that gets thrown right into the trash can. Not only does this dynamic pose a threat from a fraud perspective – trash cans and mailboxes can be treasure troves for opportunistic fraudsters – but you have to figure the effect on the environment isn’t great either.
Paper products aren’t as bad as most materials, according to North Carolina State University Professor Richard Venditti, because they’re renewable, recyclable and biodegradable and they motivate land owners to plant trees. However, Venditti says, “inefficient use of paper does consume resources and have an impact on the environment.”
While credit card direct mail is on the rise after hitting a two-year low in April 2012, long-term trends suggest a declining role for traditional paper mail in the years to come. Not only are financial services companies increasingly offering paperless options to their account holders – even charging extra for paper statements, but they’re also learning how to better leverage digital means for marketing purposes. These changes are largely based on the shifting preferences of the modern consumer as well as the overall technicalization of modern commerce – not some newfound corporate altruism – but does it really matter?
Unfortunately, wasted paper may not be the only environmental concern tied to credit cards. There are roughly 1.2 billion credit cards in circulation in the United States alone, and they expire or get lost all the time. What effect does that have on the environment?
“In the US, around 30 million tons or 60 billion pounds of plastics are discarded annually, with only around 7% of them recycled,” Dr. Samantha MacBride, assistant professor at Baruch College and former deputy director for recycling at the New York City Department of Sanitation, told CardHub. The effect of credit cards on the environment, she says, pales in comparison to that of plastic bags, containers, toys, and personal hygiene products.
It all adds up, though. And if you were to add all of the credit cards in circulation on top of one another – like stack them up – you would get a mountain as high as 13 Mount Everests.
As a result, with consumers becoming more environmentally focused, credit card issuers are increasingly using their cards’ basic materials as a point of differentiation. Chase’s Sapphire Preferred Card is made of metal, for example, and when it expires the company will send you an envelope so that you can return it for safe disposal. The American Express Centurion Card is made from titanium, and the Visa Black Card is made of carbon. “Biodegradable” is a word you often hear bandied about in this regard as well.
There are a couple of major reasons why you should ignore such gimmicks.
Biodegradable may not really mean biodegradable at the end of the day. How such terms are defined and the manner in which they are used in advertising has garnered a great deal of legal scrutiny in recent years. Perhaps that is why Discover no longer offers its so-called biodegradable Green Credit Card.
“The bulk of a credit card can be biodegradable, if produced from polymers derived from plants,” Venditti says. “The magnetic stripes and other metallic inks on the other hand, may not be biodegradable portions.”
What’s more, the plastic or metal from which your credit card is made will not save you any money. Nor will the picture on the front of your card or any other cosmetic feature. The rates, rewards and fees associated with your card are all that matter. And the more money you save yourself via attractive credit card terms, the more you can donate to an environmental charity – if efficiently helping the environment is your ultimate goal.
Either way, the intersection of the mobile advancements and increased consumer awareness will undoubtedly lead to a smaller footprint from the financial services industry in the years to come. For now, however, there is still a great deal of work to be done.
Credit card image via Shutterstock.
Odysseas Papadimitriou is CEO of the personal finance social network WalletHub & the credit card comparison website CardHub. He previously worked as a senior director at Capital One.
