[LINK] Environmental impact of web versus print

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

Tom Worthington wrote:
> Perhaps AGIMO could carry out a study on: "Are web pages better for 
> the environment than paper documents?".
>
> I would assume that replacing all the printed reports the government 
> produces with copies on the web would be good for the environment by 
> reducing paper use and cost of transporting the documents.
" A report released yesterday by ABARE on Australia's forest and wood 
products statistics shows Australians have increased their consumption 
of paper and paper products by 25% over the past 4 years.' - 2005, 
National Association of Forest Industries.

http://www.nafi.com.au/media/view.php3?id=343

Moreover, this is a long-term trend. The table on this page:
http://www.nafi.com.au/briefings/index.php3?brief=11

...shows growth in consumption of various kinds of paper, including 
printing/writing, up to 2000. The table ends at 2001 when there is a 
slight decline.

RC
> But to view a web page you have to have a computer which consumes 
> resources to make, operate and dispose of. Do the savings on the paper 
> offset the computer costs?
>
> On Wednesday Drs Faltenbacher and Gediga talked on "Life Cycle 
> Analysis -- A Tool to Understand Sustainability" in Canberra at the 
> Australian National University:
>
> "During this seminar they will give an overview of their work, their 
> methodologies and then some detailed results and analysis of a couple 
> of case studies. Life cycle analysis is vital in discussing the cradle 
> to grave impact of sustainable energy technologies." 
> <http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/09/life-cycle-analysis-20-sep-canberra.html> 
>
>
> They uses some software 
> <http://www.pe-consulting-group.com/software.html> to check the 
> environmental effects of production processes and whole companies. I 
> asked them if they applied the same process to their own company and 
> they said they did (having to fly to Australia to give a talk pushed 
> up their greenhouse gas emissions).
>
> They use the ISO14000 Series of Standards on  Environmental Management 
> Systems. These are like the ISO 9000 quality management  standards and 
> lend themselves to simple form filling automation 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_14001>.
>
>
>
> Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
> Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
> PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
> Director, ACS Communications Tech Board   http://www.acs.org.au/ctb/
> Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml 
>
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>