Insurance company Esurance is saving consumers money and a few hundred trees by drastically reducing the amount of paper used. The company says it saved 239 trees in 2005 by doing its record keeping digital and communicating with customers through email instead of snail mail.

As Esurance points out, it's not just the trees that are being saved, it is also the energy used in producing the paper, even if it is recycled. Recycling paper requires vehicles for collection, and machines to process the paper, and energy to create the ink, so of course printing nothing is a much more sustainable practice, so

Esurance is also giving customers a financial incentive to signing up online by offering a $75 bounty for filling out the forms online. Esurance also bought hybrids for its claims representatives so that they will reduce the amount of fuel burned when checking out those unfortunate incidents.

While we will never get close to the paperless office, it is good to see Esurance realizing the financial and environmental benefits to cutting out needless paper communications. Hopefully more companies will follow suit.