Two Saskatoon apartment buildings managed by Toronto-based Realstar have ditched paper notices in favour of email communication as part of the company's green initiative.

It means instead of slipping notices under hundreds of doors for things like smoke alarm testing, maintenance requests or rental increases, landlords will now communicate with tenants over email.

Realstar even held contests across Canada for people who submitted their email addresses, said marketing manager Lucy Correia.

"It's not something that's going to pull us away from having that communication one on one with the resident. It's strictly on the basis of wanting to go green," Correia said.

"I'm excited by the concept," said Joanne Fedyk, executive director with the Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council.

"We're about waste reduction, and that's the part of the three "R's" that's the most effective, and anytime we can actually make that happen it's very exciting."

Fedyk said she believes the paperless apartments can work as long as people aren't printing the emails, and as long as everyone is receiving the notices.

"You have to make sure that people actually have the information they need, so they might have to have some kind of back-up system in place," she said.

Correia said Realstar will continue sending out paper notices to the small percentage of residents, about 10 to 15 per cent, who don't have access to email.

Realstar used to print four newsletters a year for just over 22,000 residents across Canada. Correia notes by sending it over email, the company will save approximately $16,000 a year.

"We've received very, very good feedback from the residents," said Correia.

Realstar is one of the few rental companies with buildings in Saskatchewan that has adopted an email database - Weidner Homes recently went paperless as well.

Rental giant Boardwalk and Saskatoon-based Remai Construction, say they still use paper notices.

bmcadam@rawlco.com

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