Reducing the paper bills

Last year BT joined forces with the Woodland Trust embarking on a large-scale national tree-planting project. Its a project that will signal good news for the UKs woodlands and wildlife as well as BT residential customers. In addition, a number of environmentally-conscious volunteers are enjoying their involvement too

On the morning of Tuesday, November 8th 2005, a group of around 40 or so wellington boot wearing volunteers from BT, headed off to a small wood just outside Didcot in Oxfordshire.

The groups mission was to plant the first of more than 10,000 trees at Neptune Wood, near the village of Little Wittenham.

This ensemble of digging enthusiasts had come to Little Wittenham that day because Neptune Wood had been ear-marked as the kick-off site for one of the largest ever tree-planting projects undertaken by national conservation charity, the Woodland Trust.

A partnership between BT and the Woodland Trust will see up to 90,000 native saplings planted at hundreds of locations throughout the UK - thanks to BT customers opting to receive their bills online. For every customer signing up for paper-free billing, BT will purchase a native sapling on the customers behalf for the Woodland Trust to plant.

That morning, on arrival at Neptune Wood, members of the first planting party were split into groups and tasked with planting the saplings in marked out pens.

I planted about five or six trees and to be honest it wasnt as exhausting as I thought it might be, said volunteer Graham Potter, whos day job is as an IT manager.

Afternoon exertion

The most strenuous part of the day was in the afternoon when we all helped clear some of the scrub. That took a bit of exertion as a lot of it had to be sawn down and we were slightly hindered by the amount of thorns. But it was a really enjoyable day. It was good to work up a sweat and get out in the fresh air. Potter added.

Apart from being able to benefit from an enjoyable, if fairly busy, day out, those volunteers many of whom had never participated in voluntary work before - were attracted to the idea of doing something really worthwhile with a national charity helping to conserve and plant woodland.

Founded in 1972, the Woodland Trust campaigns to create and improve policies, incentives and legislation to protect ancient woods, improve woodland biodiversity, increase native woodland cover and increase understanding and enjoyment of woods.

Among its many activities, the Trust works with a number of commercial organisations in the UK to promote woodland conservation and the importance of paper recycling. The charity, which already recognised BTs commitment to the use of environmentally-friendly paper throughout its business, began to discuss ideas around the subject of paperless billing with BT.

Encouraging residential customers to adopt online billing has been on BTs agenda for a couple of years. However, it has been the partnership with the Woodland Trust, as well as the communications campaign to promote the partnership that has seen the numbers of customers opting for paperless billing rocket.

Clear picture

Incentivising customers combined with painting a clear picture of the benefits of upgrading to online billing has delivered some great results, said Nick Button, who heads up online billing for BTs residential customers.

We originally started a go paper-free communications programme via the BT.com web site before we hooked up with the Woodland Trust. But to be honest, said Button, we werent really giving our customers a strong enough reason to go paper-free.

The arrangement with the Woodland Trust changed all that. Our customers could immediately see how they would make a real difference there was a real tangibility for them knowing that theyd be directly responsible for the planting of a new sapling.

He continued, We also decided to add a little more functionality online to make it easier and more alluring for customers to click the yes please option. Improvements were made to the way we communicate with our online billing customers. An example of this is the introduction of an e-bill alert process where e-mails  are sent automatically to customers when their latest bill is ready to view online".

Before the communications programme was transformed by the advent of the partnership with the Woodland Trust, sign-ups for the paperless billing programme averaged about 1,500 residential customers per month, continued Button. But the new campaign has yielded some pretty dramatic results. More than 8,300 customers signed up in December 2005 alone. By early February 2006 we had surpassed 24,000 sign-ups and we are well on the way to reaching 45,000 sign-ups by the end of March all specifically through the success of the Woodland Trust messaging.

Wed like to achieve 2.9 million paper-free customers by 2008/2009. Thats pretty ambitious but Im confident we can do it, said Button.

We will continue to develop new incentives to boost sign-ups for example for the first few months of 2006 we held a weekly 1,000 draw for customers signing up paper-free billing via BT.com. And we will continue to work with the Woodland Trust on generating and adopting further ideas, he added.

Its not just BT people who are in high spirits about the progress of the paperless project. Ioan Reed-Aspley of the Woodland Trust confirmed that the they are delighted with the way the project with BT is going.

Its a great partnership and it ties in really nicely with what the organisation as a whole is trying to do and all the messages we are delivering about paper usage, he said.

Communicating the importance of creating new woodlands, and the importance of protecting established and ancient woodland is a critical activity for us. BT is showing through the significant resource it is investing that it empathises with us on this.

Real momentum

Added Reed-Apsley, Many large corporates are becoming aware of the need to green up generally but lots still use a huge amount of paper. So its great news that BT is addressing this issue.

Although still in its early stages, the project has given real momentum to BTs drive towards the uptake of paperless billing. It is also helping to promote greater environmental awareness among employees and is helping to foster the spirit of volunteering across the company. Most importantly, the partnership is making a visible contribution to the conservation of the UKs woodlands.