Carbon Impact Of Paper Compared To Digital

A Comparison Of Carbon Impacts

Print and digital media have different levels of environmental impact. But while companies may claim that digital is kinder to the planet, the true facts tell a different story.

In recent years, the carbon footprint caused by e-waste and the growth of dark data have grown in proportion to the increasing sustainability of the print industry. Yet on a daily basis, everyone from banks to lawyers to utility companies to health professionals are asking people to switch to digital-only communications, with the misguided justification that this helps benefit the environment.

But with the digital data cloud growing exponentially, how long can they cling to this outdated way of thinking?

A Solution, Not A Problem

According to evangelists for the digital revolution that took hold either side of the millennium, phasing out printed communications was not only a more efficient and convenient way to run businesses, market products and live our everyday lives, but a greener way too. But a couple of decades on, there’s a strong argument to say that print is a key part of the climate solution.

Between 1990 and 2019, the paper industry reduced its carbon emissions by 48%1, and it’s the biggest single user and producer of renewable energy in Europe, with 62% of its primary energy consumption coming from renewable sources2.

The paper, pulp and print sector is now among the lowest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases, accounting for 0.8% of European emissions3. Meanwhile, 93% of the water used in the European paper industry is returned after being used and treated4.

In 2022, The Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) found that 71.4% of European paper and paperboard was recycled – the third consecutive year in which that figure had exceeded 70%5. And there has been an increase of 9% in European land mass covered with forests6, with Forest Europe reporting that the “volume of wood and the weight of carbon stored in the biomass of European forests has increased by 50%.” 7

The Growing Digital Mountain

Mike Berners-Lee was one of the first to alert us to some uncomfortable truths about digital communications in his 2010 book The Carbon Footprint Of Everything. He calculated that a normal email has a carbon footprint of up to 26g of CO2 – a figure that can inflate to 50g once attachments are added9.

Print is also is more likely to be responsibly recycled rather than requiring yet more advanced hardware to deal with it, many of which make previous versions of your electronic devices obsolete and contribute yet more to the world’s e-waste problems.

Globally, it’s estimated that only 17.4% of e-waste is recycled at present10. Last year, European business sustainability think tank EY estimated that digitalisation is already responsible for 4% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions11 – as opposed to 0.8% traced to the print and paper sector12.

According a report earlier this year by Loughborough University’s Business School, Data centres are responsible for between 2.5 and 3.7% of all human-induced CO2 – more than the entire aviation industry (2.1%)13.

The Dark Side Of The Cloud

One pressing issue is the growth of ‘dark data’. More than half15 of the digital data firms generate is collected, processed and stored for single-use purposes, then never deleted. Whether it’s similar versions of the same photos we take with our phones, obsolete spreadsheets or caches of data from old gadgets or networks, it continues to pile up as data centres – and the planet – takes the strain.

With the amount of digital data doubling every two years16, this problem is getting worse very quickly. Meanwhile, discarded digital hardware is a mounting problem. The WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment) forum estimated that in 2022, 5.3 billion mobile phones would be thrown away17 while billions more were being hoarded or lying dormant and obsolete in drawers and lofts. They found that 45% of homes have between two and five electronic devices lying unused, with only a minority having any plans to recycle them18.

“These devices offer many important resources that can be used in the production of new electronic devices or other equipment, such as wind turbines, electric car batteries or solar panels,” said WEEE’s Magdalena Charytanowicz. “These are all crucial for the green, digital transition to low-carbon societies.”

The Business Of Device Recycling

Domestic users are only part of the problem – businesses are even less inclined to recycle their old hardware. Recycling specialists Business Waste reported recently that up to 95%19 of companies still send electronic waste to landfill rather than arranging for it to be reused or recycled. Mark Hall, their commercial director, told Tech Donut: “Scares over identity theft and corporate crime mean that bosses would rather completely destroy computer goods themselves rather that hand it to a third party to be disposed of correctly.” 20 

So the next time you’re told a business you deal with is “going paperless”, it might be worth asking ‘Why?’