How would you like to save 16,000 pounds of wood and eliminate almost 14,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year?

Currently, Vanderbilt prints more than 20,000 pay advices each month – that’s the blue printout of your payment information that you get if you have direct deposit but have not yet gone paperless.

“The blue pay advice is not a ‘live’ check and contains payroll information that is easily obtained by logging in to the C2HR Web site,” says Dan Cline, director, Human Resource Operations. Enhanced employee leave balance information in C2HR allows you to see current month and cumulative year to date leave balances.  Now all paycheck information is available electronically.

Eliminating printed pay advices will reap environmental savings. “We could potentially save 16,000 pounds of wood and almost 14,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year just from reduced paper usage, not including transportation or printing impact” says Andrea George, director of the Sustainability and Environmental Management Office.

Environmentally, the cost is much more than just the paper on which the advices are printed. “When you include the materials and energy used to print and heat-seal each pay advice and the vehicles used to deliver them, the environmental cost is substantial, even if you recycled all the advices printed,” says Jennifer Hackett, recycling coordinator.

Beginning June 1, It Pay$ to be Green goes live. If you are using direct deposit and receive a blue pay advice, log into C2HR.  A message will appear giving you the ability to turn off your printed pay advice. Simply select the "Yes.”  Congratulations, you’ve gone paperless. 

Recipients of actual checks are encouraged to sign up for direct deposit.  Login to C2HR (go to http://hr.vanderbilt.edu, then click on “Log into C2HR”), click on “direct deposit” and follow the instructions. You will need your bank’s routing number and your account number to set up direct deposit. 

If you do not have a bank account, consider using the Vanderbilt Paycard.  Vanderbilt has teamed with First Tennessee Bank to offer a safe, convenient alternative to receiving a payroll check.  Your “take-home” pay is automatically deposited to your PIN-protected Paycard every payday. For more information about the Vanderbilt Paycard go to http://hr.vanderbilt.edu/toolbox/Paycard.htm.

A Web-based help site, online training and open forum sessions are being developed to support this initiative. If you would like a presentation for your department or group, please contact Bill Bailey at bill.bailey@vanderbilt.edu.

For more information about direct deposit, visit http://hr.vanderbilt.edu/compensation/PayAdvice.htm or call HR customer service at 615.322.8330.

For more information about Vanderbilt’s recycling opportunities and sustainability program visit SustainVU at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/sustainvu.