We've previously heard of schools and colleges using e-books to cut costs and save paper, but had never really considered their environmental impact... until now.
According to a study by the Cleantech Group, Amazon's Kindle accounts for far less CO2 output over its life than consuming comparable numbers of paper books would.
Lots and lots of books
The research suggests a Kindle's lifetime production and running costs are responsible for 168kg of CO2, while printing and distribution of three books a month for four years would pump out 1,074kg.
The arbitrary nature of the numbers is underlined by the further assertion that consuming printed matter to a sufficient degree to match the Kindle's maximum capacity would chalk up a whopping 26,098kg of CO2.
Half a book?
Silly numbers aside (actual reading habits in the long term are surely what matter), the study's bottom line is that Kindle users can break even in CO2 terms if they use it to read 22.5 books over the device's lifetime.
Which leads us to speculate that the 0.5 of a book has to be the copy of 1984 Amazon swiped from paying customers in the dead of night.
As for the slightly depressing e-book-induced loss of personal libraries to be cherished and shared with others, we're not even going to go there.
Via CNet
Your comments (4) Click to add a new comment
ecolibris
September 7th
4. I was among those who thought Cleantech's report might be the life cycle analysis we were waiting for. I was hoping this report is the final word on the debate on how green the Kindle is. Unfortunately I am afraid it's not.
I read the report was happy to find a well-written analysis that integrates many pieces of information that together create a more coherent picture. At the same time I am not that sure about the validity of the findings. The two main issues that bothered me mostly are the calculation of the carbon footprint of a single Kindle and the assumption about the number of e-books the average user is reading.
You're welcome to check out my analysis of the report on our blog - http://ecolibris.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-report-finds-kindle-greener-than.html
Best,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
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dm_75
August 30th
3. There is the sting in the tail though, according the Observer Newspaper.
"the huge use of energy by data centres is often left out of the equation"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/30/reading-books-online-eco-friendly
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backstroker
August 30th
2. Worth mentioning that the Cleantech Group is not an independent research body, but a business services company aimed at business growth. The very term "Cleantech" is a trademark.
As reported this begs so many questions (e.g. the presumed life of the device, re-reading, borrowing, second hand buying, etc., of paper books)that it's best treated as a piece of industry puff.
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jmace86
August 29th
1. I would rather have an e-book reader than a whole load of books, but at the moment, the readers are very expensive and the e-books themselves are often no cheaper than buying a paper version of a book.
If e-books were considerably cheaper than standard paperbacks then at least one could recoup the cost of the e-book reader over time.
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