Progressive Insurance: this Company ‘Gets It’

Friday, January 30th, 2009

In a recent post by Jennifer Berry at Earth911.com, a couple of important, and under-reported facts were presented:

• Due to fires and other natural causes, over 1 million acres need to be replanted, according to the U.S. Forest Service
• According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, approximately 35 percent of the municipal solid waste stream (MSW) is made up of paper and paperboard products. Paper makes up the largest portion of the municipal waste stream and is also one of the most recovered materials.

Where does Progressive fit into this?  By encouraging their customers to move to paperless statements, tons of paper didn’t need to be printed.  As an incentive, they agreed to plant a tree for each customer who signed up.   How many took them up on the offer?  A million.

That’s a million new trees being planted. A million trees, once mature, will absorb about 48 million pounds of carbon dioxide each year.  And for every ton of paper NOT printed, 15 trees avoid the hatchet, so they can continue to store carbon. We call that win/win, and is something we can all understand.

Good job, Progressive Insurance.

Tags: Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Sequestration, environment, green movement
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