Pixel Vs. Print - SeasonsGreenings.net Survey
Our survey of business professionals shows 61% believe that ecards are greener than print, creating a smaller environmental footprint; 14% believe print cards are the greener option.
The surprising result is that 23% of professionals believe that ecards have no environmental footprint, a common and troubling misconception about computing in general, which creates a significant carbon footprint through its use of electricity and cooling systems.
According to Don Carli of the Institute for Sustainable Communications, “Paper or digital? The simple answer is—neither. The most common answer is that print kills trees and computers don't, so digital media must be greener. The typical indignant response is that print is greener because trees are a renewable resource and computers are toxic energy vampires that don't grow on trees. It's time to stop the bickering….
Both print and digital media use prodigious amounts of electricity. According to the Department of Energy, the U.S. papermaking industry used more than 75 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2006. That's the fourth largest industrial use of electricity in the country. However, U.S. data centers and servers consumed over 60 billion kilowatt hours of electricity during the same year, and that does not include the energy consumed by client computers or networks. In fact, recent analysis by Gartner Research indicates that datacenter energy consumption is expected to double by 2010, and its growth is unsustainable. This is one of the factors spurring investment in Green IT.”
Don goes on to describe the carbon footprint of your iphone. Bet you never considered that!
Back to the question of holiday cards - survey respondents added some additional commentary on the subject:
“…I wonder if you can even compare these two products. An e-card has the attention value of a text message or SMS or maybe even lower. It's no competition for the real greeting card. Important to develop more FCS and recycled products therefore….”
Another respondent offered, “Seems like hands down it should be e-cards, but it got me thinking. With regular cards there are a lot more jobs, people making paper, processing it, printing it, shipping it, selling it. So, greener yes, but more sustainable....I wonder.”
Whether you use print or ecards, this holiday season, please consider your options and your impacts.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
