How to Go “Green” With Your Credit Cards
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008An issue that is of increasing concern to a great number of people is how to live a more environmentally-friendly life without compromising the lifestyle that they prefer to live by. While many people want to be more “green” in their daily lives, they don’t want to have to put themselves out in order to do it. That’s okay. There are many things that you can do on a daily basis which will help to protect the environment around you without requiring you to suffer any discomfort. Some of those things are directly related to the use of your credit cards.
Here are some of the things that you can do to be a credit card user who practices green behavior:
• Get a green credit card. This is the most obvious thing that you can do to use credit cards in an environmentally-friendly way. Green credit cards are cards which donate a percentage of your balance due to a pro-environment card. Many of the major credit card companies now offer green credit cards. There are also smaller lenders that specifically exist to offer green credit cards to consumers. Consider getting one of these so that the money you’re spending on credit cards anyway can go to support a good cause.
• Use paperless billing. No matter what credit cards you use, you can almost always engage in the green practice of going paperless. What this means is that you’ll no longer receive statements by mail and will instead get them electronically. This helps to save a significant amount of the earth’s paper resources.
• Ask to be removed from pre-approved offer lists. These lists are what result in you getting all of those “you’re approved” credit card offers in the mail. These also put a crunch on our paper resources. You can ask to be removed from these lists to help reduce paper waste.
• Use your credit cards to purchase green items. It’s still expensive to get certain green things (such as hybrid cars or solar panels for your home). Use your credit cards to assist you in obtaining the additional funds necessary to purchase green items that you can use daily.
There are many different things that you can do to use your credit cards in a green way. Whether you want to go all out with a green credit card or simply use your existing rewards cards to get a few green items for your home, you can engage in your daily practices in a way that helps out the earth around you.
