Still not going green...

but it's getting a lot harder to make that argument since I'm now carrying around a debit card with the word "GreenSense" and a picture of a tree on it, that was made from recycled plastic. I can explain, really!

I'm not going to run through the long story of why, but I decided last week that I needed to open a secondary checking account - a basic, no fills account to handle a relatively small amount of money. Given that choice, I was faced with deciding between any number of banks with various similar account benefits. Rather than spending a ton of time sorting through them all, I decided, as a loyal Phillies fan, to go with Citizens Bank, the official bank of the Phillies and the namesake of the Phillies ballpark. Go Phillies!

Once that decision was made, I was left with opening a "Green" checking account. That's the name of Citizens Bank's basic free checking account, the only one that doesn't require a minimum balance of any kind to avoid a maintenance fee. Once you have that checking account, the GreenSense program is a free option. What is the GreenSense program? Well, you agree to enroll in online banking and get electronic statements rather than paper. I do that with virtually all my accounts anyhow, because the paper is a hassle and online banking rules. Then, they give you ten cents everytime you pay for something out of your account without using paper (a check). That's right, everytime I use my debit card, or make a payment online, or anything like that, they give me 10 cents, up to $10 a month. So, I could opt out of the program, if I don't like being paid for things I'm gonna do anyhow.

This, by the way, is how "going green" should work. The program really isn't an incentive for me to be more eco-friendly, because I prefer to do the things I'm getting rewarded for anyhow, just for the sake of convenience. However, from the perspective of Citizens Bank, it saves them money to not have to send a monthly statement, or process a check, or other things like that. So, rather than just preaching the benefits of "going green", they pass some of that savings on to their customers in order to incent them to buy into those programs.

I think Amanda commented on my last "not going green" rant that it would be much easier to get people to "go green" if they stopped using that terminology and just started educating people on the personal benefits that many "green" decisions have, and I have to agree. The term has been stigmatized with a lot of people. I'm far too practical to be scared off of something like this just because it has "green" attached to it, but I know people that aren't. Of course, maybe Citizens Bank figures the number of people who would be attracted by the word is greater than those repelled by it, and they might be right. I, for one, will stand confident in the knowledge that I have a "green" debit card for my benefit, with collateral environmental benefit just being bonus!