SmartPay is an intentionally green company. One of the reasons, in fact, to go with SmartPay electronic invoicing for your billing needs is that it cuts down on paper waste, fuel (no mail to be delivered), and toxins used in preparing ink, paper, and copy machine toner.

But sometimes people question this. "What about the electricity for running your computer?" they ask. "You can't think that e-invoicing is completely green if you use electricity for it."

We're glad to see people thinking about these things. We've thought about it, too. Here's our answer:

• The great majority of the fuel use for computers isn't the electricity used to run the computer, or even the electricity used to run the servers that stay on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week keeping things going. It's the electricity used for cooling the machines. Some studies estimate that two thirds of the electricity for computers is actually for cooling. Whatever we do to help slow down climate change -- including reducing our use of physical resources like paper and fossil fuels -- can help.
  
• Once your computer is on and running, it won't use any more fuel to run SmartPay than it would to run the spreadsheet, word processor, and printer you used to use to create those paper bills. In fact, turning off the printer can save as much energy as turning off your computer would.
• Energy-efficient computing is more about limiting the size of your monitor, giving up your screen saver and powering down when idle than about how much you actually use your keyboard. This is only relevant to billing if you actually wrote your invoices out by hand, though, since you probably used your computer to make paper bills.
  
• Having lots of software on your machine, on the other hand, can increase energy use, and can also slow down your computer. If you have lots of programs that you no longer run, or lots of unneeded files, consider taking an afternoon to clean up your computer. Give it a tune-up now and then, too, and you'll find that it runs better and you may get more done in less time -- thus reducing your energy usage.
• SmartPay is web-based, not software that runs on your computer, so it doesn't take up extra energy. The internet is an amazing energy-saver, and it runs much more efficiently now than it used to. Nearly anything you do on the web uses less electricity that the comparable task done without the internet.
• Having said that, we should also now suggest that the good-luck message email with music, a power point, and 17 large images that you were just about to forward to 200 of your closest friends should probably not be sent at all. If would take less energy than printing it all out or recording it and putting it into envelopes and sending it in the mail -- but you wouldn't do that, would you?