shrinkpaper.org
Shrink: Paper Efficiency
Project
PEP Talk
Paper v Digital
Mandy Haggith - hag@environmentalpaper.eu
Michael Sturges - michael.sturges@innventia.com
Meredith Walsh Meredith.Walsh@uk.penguingroup.com
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European Environmental Paper Network
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Common Vision
The Environmental Paper Networks in Europe
and North America (> 100 NGOs) have a
shared Vision for Transforming the Pulp
and Paper Industry
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Reduce
Reduce
Ensure
Source
Ensure
consumption
reliance on virgin forest fibre
social responsibility
fibre responsibly
clean production
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We want to protect this…
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from becoming this…
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…and minimise this.
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Main impacts of paper-making
Climate Change
Forest Destruction
Energy Use
Waste
Water Use
Pollution
Plantations
Illegal Logging
Human Rights Abuses
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The shrink project 2 (2012-13)
60 UK organisations being assessed and urged to take
action on paper efficiency, 10 each of
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Supermarkets
Catalogue retailers
Financial firms
Utilities (gas, phone etc)
Governmental bodies
Universities
The scorecard will be published in July 2013
New website, more paper saving case studies
Motivational seminars and PEP talks:
• Packaging (5 June)
• Paper Vapour (climate change), 9 July, London
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Paper v digital – some starting points
Global annual sector CO2e emissions (from Climate
for Ideas):
• paper - 2500 MTonnes (8% of global emissions)
• IT - 860MTonnes (2.7% of global emissions)
The Climate Group estimates digital applications
could replace up to 25% of paper consumption.
That could produce really substantial carbon
emission reductions.
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Paper v Digital – some questions
Do we compare global impacts of the paper and IT
industries, or marginal impacts, product by
product?
Do we compare impacts of use, or include impacts of
manufacture and disposal as well (full life
cycle assessment?)
What is included in the life cycle assessment of
products? Carbon footprint only? Or all
environmental and social impacts?
Is enough known about the impacts of new
technologies (e.g. rare metals and handling of
e-waste)?
How to handle threshold effects? (e.g. the claim
that <5000 pages, paper is better, > 5000 pages,
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digital is better)
Understanding the footprint
of digital content –
experiences from the UK
magazine sector
Michael Sturges, Innventia Edge
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PPAs carbon journey
2001 – Balanced Reading – mass balance of the UK magazine
publishing supply chain (Phase 0)
2008 – Magazine sector carbon footprint (Phase 1)
2009 – Magazine Carbon calculator (Phase 2)
2011 – Updating the carbon calculator data (Phase 3)
2012-13 – Moving the calculator online, extending the scope,
reporting to government (Phase 4)
2012-13 – Carbon footprint of digital media (Phase 5)
2013 – Embedding carbon footprinting
reporting to government (Phase 6)
in the industry and
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Activities giving rise to GHG emissions
Supply chain stage
Potential sources of GHG from digital publishing
Content
generation
This is the activity
necessary to generate
the intellectual content
to be included in the
publication. Some of
this will have parallels
with traditional
magazine publishing
content generation
(journalist travel,
photo-shoots, article
writing, editing, etc).
However, publishing to
new channels may
require additional
content generation
activities, such as video
production, blogging,
tweeting, etc.
Content
conversion
This is the process of
converting the content
into the appropriate
electronic formats,
such as an App. This
will be desk-based
activity. The main
sources of GHG
emissions from this
stage of the supply
chain are likely to be:
• Emissions arising
from the electricity
consumed to power
computers, etc
• Emissions arising
from the production
and subsequent
waste management
of computing
hardware
Content
storage
Data storage may be inhouse or outsourced.
The main sources of
GHG emissions from
this stage of the supply
chain are likely to be:
• Emissions arising
from the electricity
consumed to power
servers, etc
• Emissions arising
from the power used
in air
conditioning/cooling
server rooms
• Emissions arising
from the production
and subsequent
waste management
of data centre
hardware
Content
distribution
Depending on the
format and end-user,
content may be
distributed by the
Internet or by a
wireless network. The
main sources of GHG
emissions from this
stage of the supply
chain are likely to be:
• Emissions arising
from the electricity
consumed to power
the networks, etc
• Emissions arising
from the production
and subsequent
waste management
of network
infrastructure and
hardware
Use
This is the process of
accessing and reading
the content. The main
sources of GHG
emissions from this
stage of the supply
chain are likely to be:
• Emissions arising
from the production
and subsequent
waste management
of the reading device
• Emissions arising
from the electricity
consumed to power
the reading device
(and any peripheral
devices)
• Emissions associated
with any printing
made by the reader
Source: Innventia Edge 2011
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What did we learn from the existing research
and our own case studies?
Some words of caution:
There are few studies and only one of these evaluates the carbon
footprint of these technologies from the perspective of a magazine
publisher
Data and assumptions in different studies are often contradictory or
lack transparency
Boundaries and methodologies are highly influential
Some studies lack rigour but achieve influence
The displacement relationship between e-publishing and traditional
publishing is unclear
There is only limited data on the carbon impact of reading devices
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What did we learn from the existing research
and our own case studies?
Nonetheless, we still begin to get some insights:
Data and knowledge is improving all the time and this can change results and
conclusions
Data centre impacts may be small when allocated across many activities
The carbon impact of the supporting distribution network (Internet and access
networks) should not be forgotten
User devices are a significant part of the digital footprint
a.
b.
Powering the devices
Manufacturing the devices
User behaviour has a significant influence on the overall footprint of digital
content
Publishers
can take decisions which help the user minimise their footprint
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Crude estimate of the footprint for alternative
channels for delivering content
Source: Innventia Edge 2011
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Paper and
Digital
What do we know?
Meredith Walsh
Penguin Group UK
May 2013
Why did Penguin want to calculate
their CO2 footprint?
• Penguin publish trade mono and colour
books
• We manage the impact on biodiversity and
landrights via certification and other
tools
• We want to manage carbon impacts
• We need knowledge to do this
• Goal is to know paper and digital product
footprints
• We will make both products and want to
manage the impacts of both
• There is also the increasing possibility
of legislation that will require us to
know the carbon footprint of our supply
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Bookcarbon.com
• Through the UK Publishers Association a
group of UK publishers created
Bookcarbon.com
• Invenntia built this tool
• It calculates
– Monoprint carbon footprints
– Titles printed in the UK
– Cradle to Grave
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Paper and Digital Comparison
• Manufacturing and
creation footprint
• Manufacturing and
creation PLUS Apples
estimate of the CO2
produced over the life
of an iPad
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http://images.apple.com/euro/environment/r
eports/docs/iPad_Retina_PER_oct2012.pdf
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalrepo
rts/buyingbookswithoutamazon/environment.a
spx
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What have we learnt?
Book Production
• Where the main CO2 impacts lie when we
print a book
• For Penguin it’s mostly in the paper, as
most of our titles are over a certain
number of pages – and we can manage this
impact
• Whether or not a mill is integrated and
what it uses for energy make a big
difference to the carbon impact
• Using the WRI scopes; we have lowered our
impact
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What would we like to know more
about?
Digital supply chain and product use
• More knowledge would provide more insights
with which to manage our impacts
• Questions we’d like to answer
– How do customers use devices? How long do they
read for, do they read to finish an article or do
they have a screen tolerance time?
– What kind of product is used on what devices?
– Can products be designed to be low storage and low
use?
– What methodology should be used for comparing
single function devices or products to
multifunction devices?
– What are the other environmental impacts of the
digital supply chain, particularly for the
extraction of minerals? Mineral extraction as a
driver of deforestation?
– As products change how should our communication
with customers change?
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What have we learnt?
Digital production
• We can measure the CO2 generation of content
creation for a digital product
• There is limited publicly available data on
the CO2 footprint of reading devices, but what
there is we can use to begin the paper and
digital comparison
• Using the WRI scopes; moving to digital
products lowers our carbon and forest impacts
• We see that there are additional impacts
across the full length of the digital supply
chain
• We can engage our customers and offer
advice on end of life for both paper and
digital
– Opportunities to recycle books and devices
– Repairing devices
– Reusing books
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Thank you
Thanks for listening and for caring about your impact on
the environment!
More information on paper versus digital here:
http://shrinkpaper.org/toolkit/paper-versus-digital/
The environmental paper calculator is here:
http://c.environmentalpaper.org/home
We’re happy to answer any questions you may have.
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