Or rather wouldn't the environment benefit from having these weighty tomes winging their way electronically across the Internet except where shareholders have opted to continue to receive them through the post.

Many companies already provide an electronic alternative to the traditional report and accounts but it needs to become standard practice.

You don't have to be a fully paid-up tree hugger to be concerned about the unnecessary waste of resources involved in the compiling, printing, and delivery of an annual report.

The cost is born by you the shareholder - and the environment. The reports should be archived so that it is easier to test whether chairmen have delivered on their promises.

They will also be a lot easier to read - if made website friendly - allowing those who want to to magnify the size of print.

Proxy cards and the notice of annual general meetings need to be posted out. But alerts that the annual report is available on the Internet can be emailed to those shareholders signed up to the proposal.

Dividend announcements should continue to be communicated through existing channels.

These thoughts came to mind when I bumped into a neighbour recently who was returning from his local sorting office.

He had been chasing up a packet too big for his letter box according to the card left by the postman.

Hopes of an unexpected present were dashed when he discovered waiting for him - as he showed me - was a 150-page annual report.

The Internet should open the way to more shareholder power. It cannot be too far into the future when companies will be expected to organise live-feeds from annual meetings which can be watched on computer screens by those unable to attend the event.

It would be more of a technological feat to expect to participate fully at an annual meeting from your living room.

But it should not be impossible to be able to vote on resolutions.

As a first step company websites should be set up to allow shareholders to question directors - who owe their salaries to the investors - and receive their answers in a live open forum perhaps once a quarter.

It would be a start.