Portland, OR-based Northwest Natural Gas Co., the largest natural gas-only distributor in the region, said it passed a significant milestone Tuesday in its effort to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint by encouraging its 600,000 customers to move to electronic, or paperless, billing systems. More than 10% now have chosen that path.

With some 62,000 customers going to the electronic system, Northwest Natural is almost double the national average of other utilities around the nation moving to this form of billing, the utility said. Chartwell Inc., a utility research firm, estimated that less than 6% of customers given the choice have opted for the paperless option nationwide.

As an incentive for customers choosing the electronic option, Northwest allows those customers to select among nonprofit environmental causes, and the utility makes contributions to at least four of them. During the last three years, Northwest Natural has contributed $60,000, and it is donating another $25,000 since passing the 60,000 customer mark.

Northwest’s Community Relations Manager Von Summers said the paperless billing is helping the company “do business with customers in a more sustainable, efficient way. In return, we ask customers to help decide how to divide $25,000 among four local environmental nonprofit organizations.”

Emphasizing that “small changes make a big difference,” Northwest Natural said it has estimated that if all of its customers chose the electronic billing method, 366,000 pounds of paper used for bills and envelopes could be eliminated, 73,000 therms of energy saved that would be used in the paper-making process, and 1.5 million pounds of GHG emissions avoided.

Environmental groups getting funds as a result of the program include Friends of Trees, Oregon Water Trust, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and Oregon State Parks Trust.

©Copyright 2008Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.