The impact of publishing on the environment

Part of what draws me to ebooks is that they don’t waste one of nature’s most valuable (and beautiful, in my opinion) resources: Trees! The amount of trees it takes to print all the books we publish just in the US alone must be staggering. And you add on top of that all those printed books that are never sold and become wasted, it’s pretty sad.

I saw a very brief article (ironically, subscribers to the print edition can read the full report) in Publishers Weekly about how the publishing industry impacts the environment. It had a few interesting tidbits:

The U.S. publishing industry emits over 12.4 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, or about 8.85 pounds per book, according to the findings in the just-released report, Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry.

My biggest concern, the cutting down of trees to make the books also got some attention:

The cutting of trees for paper was found to have the most significant impact on the industry’s carbon footprint, although the report says the use of recycled paper and fibers has increased over the last several years.

Hopefully recycling will become more standard in the publishing world and better technology, combined with a more modern business model will reduce the amount of unneeded printed books that go to waste.

But are ebooks really better for the environment? I’d like to think so. However, when you think about the resources it takes to get an ebook into the hands of consumers, you really begin to wonder. First, reading ebooks requires some sort of reading device; whether it’s a computer, iPhone (yeah, I had to add it), or stand-alone reader (ie. Kindle) – all of which require power. At night I’m often amazed at all the gadgets I plug in for charging so I can function the next day. Sure, it might only draw a small amount of power, but when you add it up over all the millions of people out there with these fancy electronics, I’m sure it adds up.

And the devices themselves take an enormous amount of resources to manufacturer and distribute. Plus, when that brand new laptop becomes outdated next year, it becomes even more difficult to dispose of it in an environmentally-friendly way.

There are tons of stuff I’m skipping over in the ebook vs. print debate, especially when it comes to the environment. I didn’t want this post to get overly long so I cut it down to a few basic ideas. Hopefully as technology continues to improve and awareness about the delicate environment we inhabit becomes more widespread, a more concentrated effort will be made to make both print books and ebooks more environmentally-friendly!

Study Measure Publishing’s Carbon Footprint

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