Are ebooks really more environmentally friendly?
I’d like to think that I’m an environmentally conscious person. I recycle. I don’t litter. I try to use canvas bags at the store instead of plastic (it’s hard to remember to take those canvas bags with me though). And I hope to one day own a ‘hybrid’ car that has almost zero emissions. I’m also a vegetarian, which has to count for something.
There also seems to be a general consensus that ebooks are better for the environment than their print counterparts. I have believed this for a while, and it is one small reason why I have turned into an ebook evangelist. But then I started thinking: Are ebooks really more environmentally friendly? Or am I just believing all the hype? I decided to do some research to find out for myself.
Before diving into ebooks, it might be good to first look at print books to get a bit of a perspective. Since print still dominates the literary world, it will be a good yardstick by which to measure how ‘green’ ebooks are.
First, there’s an excellent post over at Teleread about a similar topic Apple & Amazon rated at bottom of climate change scorecard that discusses this issue. This post makes a great point about print books, which I’ll expand on after the quote:
The current book ordering system encourages bookstores to order more books than they can reasonably sell. That increases the number of published copies and consequently the number of returns (and the amount of shipping costs).
The big chain bookstores (i.e. Barnes & Noble and Borders) order large quantities of books for their stores. Of course, not every book will sell. So the books that sit on the shelves for too long usually get returned after a set amount of time (anywhere from one to three months). So you not only have all the resources that go into producing the book, like paper, printing, packaging and shipping. If the book doesn’t sell, it has to be shipped back to the publisher. I don’t know what happens after that. There appears to be a lot of waste in traditional print publishing.
Newspapers are also guilty in the excessive waste department. I find it amazing the large numbers of print newspapers that don’t sell at my local bookstore. And of course, once the day is over, the paper is already out of date. Even if the papers do get recycled, it’s still a lot of resources being wasted.
The verdict on ebooks…
While looking for information about ebooks and the environment, I found that the overall feeling is that, yes, ebooks are much more environmentally friendly than print books. Here’s an excerpt from an article, Umbra on e-books, that appears to sum the feeling up nicely:
A MS candidate named Greg Kozak pitted textbooks against e-book devices [PDF] in 2003. He found that paper production, electricity of printing operations, and personal transportation were the main factors affecting the book footprint, while electricity was the main issue for e-readers; and that books were responsible for four times the greenhouse emissions as e-readers.
And then there’s this article Ebooks and Environmental Impact over at the Self-Publishing Review:
On Salon, there’s a highly technical summary of the amount of energy it takes to read on a computer vs. printing out an article to read it. The verdict: “The contrast is quite convincing, one-tenth of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions from reading the document on the computer, versus almost one-quarter of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions for printing it out!”
Or, put it another way, using the Kindle as an example:
Another article lays out the environmental impact of reading a newspaper on a reader and reading the New York Times on an ebook. Their conclusion: “Reading the physical version of the NY Times for a year uses 7,300 MJ of energy and emits 700 kg of co2. Reading it on a Kindle uses 100 MJ of energy and emits 10 kg of co2.”
I’d say that ebooks are very much more friendly to our earth than print books. Are ebooks perfect? No. There are still problems with energy consumption, raw materials used to make the ebook reading devices, properly disposing of old devices and so forth. But I believe that as technology improves, the ‘footprint’ that ebooks leave on the environment will become smaller and smaller. For example, using solar power to recharge your reading device’s batteries.
Do you think ebooks are better for the environment? Give your reasons in the comment section below. I look forward to reading your answers!
Related posts
- The impact of publishing on the environment
- Publishers going green on Earth Day
- Simon & Schuster will sell ebooks on Scribd.com
- Sony to adopt ePub for ebooks
- Computerworld: Ebooks about to catch on fire!
Read More: Technology, eBooks
I definitely believe e-books are more environmentally friendly that print books. One major reason you didn’t mention is that about a third of the mass market paperbacks that are printed are destroyed/dumped in a landfill without ever being read. It’s not worth the expense to the publisher for the bookseller to return the books, so the bookstores strip the covers and return for credit, and then they throw away the rest of the book. That’s why there are warnings against buying a book without a cover. The bookseller has stripped and returned the cover and then has kept the book (or someone has pulled it out of the trash) to sell.
There’s a post on my blog about publishing and the environment. It’s close to two years old, but the information is still pertinent: http://lillieammann.com/2007/10/15/blog-action-day-publishing-and-the-environment/
Lillie Ammann’s latest blog post..Creating Fictional Characters—Part 5: Developing Background And Traits Using A Character Chart, Bio, Diary, or Interview
I think the bottom line is that we’re still lacking an updated comprehensive Life Cycle Analysis that will compare popular eBook devices as well as reading on laptop/desktop with the paper book. With the entrance of Barnes and Noble to the market and the expected upcoming launch of the new Plastic Logic reader it looks like such a LCA is required more than ever.
Best,
Raz Godelnik
Eco-Libris
Hi Raz:
Thank you for your comment. You are right, we definitely need an LCA to see what kind of impact ebooks have on the environment. On the surface, ebooks definitely seem more environmentally friendly, but there are so many other factors that need to be analyzed.
I had to look up Life Cycle Analysis, as I’m not very familiar with it. But here’s a good intro to LCA: http://bit.ly/ajzsa
Thanks again for your comment, I really appreciate it!
Brad
Brad,
Speaking of LCA, Joel Makower published earlier today a very interesting article about it – “The Renaissance of Lifecycle Thinking” http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/2009/08/the-renaissance-of-lifecycle-thinking.html. Definitely worth reading!
Best,
Raz
I’m learning more about this controversy…I don’t have an opinion yet…right now…I’m objective as oppose to subjective.
I’m very inquisitive, aware and curious….I see a need and a challenge/ problem which makes me want to analyse, organize and gather information to better access this subject =)
Hello there, opening up a website and I’ve started making rather diverse articles for it. Do you object if I write something about this article? I will of course give you and this post due acknowledgment.
I recently wrote an article stating that eBooks are the “environmentally friendly” choice in books: http://bookpublishing.suite101.com/article.cfm/whats_so_great_about_ebooks
I posted my article on a LinkedIn group discussion and it drew a fair amount of criticism from those who believe eReaders are less environmentally friendly than printed books. So, thank you for your article! It provided the full research and background information needed to back up my article. I posted a link to your article in this group discussion for the naysayers to read.
Well said! Great article!
It’s nice to know that there are some quality ebook reviews out there. So much fake stuff, nice to find something worth actually reading. I’ll be back.
We are trading a renewable, recyclable resources (paper) for one that is not recyclable and toxic to the environment. Also only 20% of electronic devices are recycled correctly or even recycled. Books are usually passed on from person to person, used books stores, text books are used over and over again. This discussion is not about green its about content providers gaining larger revenues. Once on your Kindle or other ebook reader, there is now passing it on.
Also look at the Swedish study
Who’s Greener?
Printed newspapers:
28kg CO2 per year, mostly from the production process
Online news:
30 minutes use per day equates to 35kg CO2 per year
Another study on electronic media in the classroom shows that impact on environment when web based teaching is used is approximately 10 higher than the environmental impact of a printed textbook.
M Enroth, Environmental impact of printed and electronic teaching aids. Vol 36 2009