Announced during Earth Month (April) and with Direct Deposit Month (May) approaching, PayitGreen, a coalition of financial services companies, provided detailed statistics about the benefits of direct deposit in their study. From a historical perspective, PayitGreen explained that direct deposit has saved U.S. businesses a total of $6.7 billion over the past 10 years—or $605 million per year.

They also broke down the financial and environmental impact of switching one U.S. employee to direct deposit: A business could save $176.55 per year on just one employee, while saving one pound of paper, and eliminating the release of four gallons of wastewater and one pound of greenhouse gasses.

PayitGreen then calculated the annual environmental impact if every U.S. employee with access to direct deposit (which they estimated at 122.5 million) used it. Aside from saving over 11 million pounds of paper and over 4 million gallons of gas, such a scenario would avoid the release of 31,581,675 pounds of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which is equivalent to over 112 million miles not driven, 1.3 million trees planted (and grown for 10 years)and nearly 14 million square feet of forest preserved.

But back to your bottom line--how can you find out what your specific payroll savings would be if your employees used direct deposit? You can find out by using what PayitGreen calls the “first-ever Direct Deposit Cost Calculator.” To access the calculator, go to Electronicpayments.org and click the “Business” tab on top of the page.