You’ve probably seen the message, “Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail,” at the end of e-mails you receive.

Adding a green message to your e-mail signature can be an effective way to draw notice. After all, the people you’re e-mailing know you. If you care about the environment, they may wonder what more they can do as well.

Here’s a story to illustrate my point. Michael, that’s my husband in case you didn’t know, added an e-mail signature like the one above to his work e-mails. Others in his department started doing the same. In a staff meeting, the organizer said something like, “Well, I didn’t print out an agenda for everyone this time because of all that save-the-paper messages in your e-mails. I wrote it on the board instead.”

That’s a small, but great change. E-mail signatures can help people think. Now here’s something for you to think about:

Do you actually refer back to those e-mails you print? How often can you make PDFs of documents instead of printing them?

Here are some e-mail signatures I came up with just for you to consider:

•If you hug a tree, you’ll be hugged back twice. Please think about not printing this e-mail.

•Trees like you, so please wink back by not printing this e-mail.

•Love a tree, don’t hit print.

•Make sense, not waste. Don’t hit print.

•Ask me why you should think twice before printing this e-mail.

•Does e-mail make us print more than we did before?

•You’re too smart to print this e-mail.

•Lower your impact today by not printing this e-mail.

•Even recycled paper takes energy to make. Do you really need to print this e-mail?

If you have a green e-mail signature, please tell us about it.

在你收到的电子邮件的末尾，你很可能看到过这样的留言：“在您打印此邮件前，请考虑一下环境”。

在你的电子邮件签名中加入一条环保留言是一种很有效的提醒注意的方式。毕竟，你发邮件的对象是认识你的。如果你关心环境，他们也会考虑还有什么是他们可以做的。

我这里有一个小故事可以说明我的观点。麦克——我老公（解释一下，以防你困惑）——在他的工作邮件中加入了一条上述类型的邮件签名。之后，在他们部门中，其他人也开始效仿。一次员工会议上，组织者说了些如下的话：“好的，为了所有那些在你们的邮件中的惜纸留言，这次我没有为每个人都打印一份议程表，而是把它写在了布告板上。”

这是一个微小但伟大的转变。电邮签名可以帮助人们思考。现在，有些问题需要你来思考一下：

你真的会再读你所打印的那些邮件吗？你把文件转成PDF格式，而非把它们打印出来的频率是多久呢？

这里有一些我见过的电邮签名可供参考：

• 如果拥抱一颗树，它会给你双倍回馈。所以请考虑下不要打印此邮件。

• 树木喜欢你，所以请慎重考虑，不要打印此邮件。

• 爱护树木，请勿打印。

• 物尽其用，而非浪费。请勿打印。

• 在你打印前，可向我咨询为何要三思。

• 电邮让我们打印的东西比以前更多了吗？

• 你太聪明了，不会打印它的。

• 降低一下你今天的影响吧，不要打印这封邮件了。

• 即便再生纸也是要花费能源去制造的，你真的需要把它打印出来吗？

如果你有环保电邮签名，请告诉我们。