With the calendar flipped to a new year, people always spend the first few weeks of January trying to preserve the resolutions they made under the influence of one-too-many holiday cocktails. My resolution this year is a little cliché, because it seems to be the product of Al Gore and half of Hollywood. But in 2009 and beyond, I resolve to be more “green.”

Those of us comfortable in the digital world ditched paper a long time ago for most things. Personal communication, commerce, and banking have all evolved to be accomplished online using things like websites, email, and PDFs. But then I look around my office and I wonder… why do I still get paper statements from my credit card companies, cable and phone companies, and banks?

Do I really need 3 printed pages and an envelope from my credit card company so I can go to my computer and pay my bill through online banking?

I’m going to do my best to be green by first canceling all my paper-bills for any company possible. There was never a good reason not to, except “I never got around to it.” I’ll continue to walk to work and ride public transit (a simple choice when you live downtown in a big city). I’ll continue to recycle all waste possible at home. But in any instance possible, I will make a conscious decision to be more considerate of the environment than I was last year, or the year before.

While many Left Button projects are aimed at putting paper content online, the benefits far exceed the ability to search, edit, and instantly access your material. One current project is going to allow an organization to avoid printing thousands of copies of a 600-page manual. Saving paper is a healthy side effect of the digital revolution.

Is your company wasting paper on manuals that could live online? Are you wasting postage and paper on communication that could easily be digital? Think about that as the year progresses, and perhaps we can help your company be a little greener too.

Happy New Year!