Sustainability

Bye bye, print and PDF: How to communicate more climate-friendly by using digital reports

This article will show you what the so called paperless office is all about: Does the idea just sound good or is it actually useful? We'll show you which details you have to pay attention to - and why online magazines are far ahead of PDFs when it comes to sustainability. 

Everyday office life is becoming more and more digital. Of course: e-mails, cloud storage, online applications, video conferences etc. are convenient and also save time and money. The digital change is considered environmentally friendly and fits in well with the spirit of our time.  

The subjects of sustainability and CO2 emissions keep becoming increasingly important, also in the corporate world. Which is good, because the global climate targets can only be achieved through spending lots of effort in different areas. Digital technologies can make an important contribution to aim this goal. 

The current Covid-19 crisis did speed up things a little here. Companies nowadays feel they have an obligation to set themselves up (more) digitally. Especially the topic of “home office” has been given keen attention over the past year. Along with this, the “paperless office” is in everyone’s mouth. Paperless .. In the context of sustainability, it's also ideal for a hand full of reports: financial, annual, social and above all the climate reports. Right? 

 

The paperless office and its advantages   

The idea of the paperless office is pretty simple: no paper whatsoever. In other words, no print products, no notepads, no envelopes, no postage stamps, etc. But instead, a complete changeover to digital documents. The advantages are obvious: 

  1. Higher productivity. No more endless searching for folders or even single documents - thanks to digital local data storages, nowadays each individual employee can get efficient, purposeful access to all relevant data and documents with their own computer, quickly and easily.
  2. Saving of expenses. Printed documents cause paper and printing costs and also take up a lot of space. In addition, there are costs for storage itself (e.g. files or dividers) and for archiving. By archiving documents digitally, you will save heaps of money.

  3. Conservation of resources. By not using a printer, for example, you would not only reduce your CO2 emissions but also save renewable raw materials as paper/wood. 

  4. Data security. By working digital there is better options to control who’s got access to which documents individually. By encrypting specific documents, you are better protected against breaches of security. 

  5. Flexibility on the go. Flexible access to documents also allows that any area of a company can be viewed, edited and controlled at any time and from anywhere, which also makes international team building more easy.

Online vs. print: How much CO2 does an online magazine actually save?

However, one has to be careful by assuming that digital in general is more ecological than print. Therefor other aspects have to be considered. In a CO2 comparison online vs. print, online is not always ahead of the pack per se. The overall package has to be right and other aspects have to be considered.

Data researched by Greenpeace provide some insight into what is more ecological in the end. The overall environmental impact of digital reading is slightly lower than the impact caused by printed media. However, this relation can also be looked at from another point of view: Once a print medium has been printed, a copy can be read as often as required with zero additional emissions. Online, on the contrary, the environmental impact increases in line with the time people spend reading it. 

Also numerous downloads are not really environmentally friendly. The more you read online, the more ecological it is eventually. If you only read one single magazine online, it would be pointless to buy a digital reading device. If, on the other hand, you read your magazines continuously on a device, the impact flips, as a hundred of printed magazines would cause an enormous consumption of resources. 

The use of resources for production must also be taken into account as well as the source of electricity being used. Likewise, the printing materials used and the electronic waste generated matter in terms of sustainability. The general life cycle assessment therefore depends to a large extent on detailed questions.

Downloads in particular cause a huge consumption of electricity.

Sustainability reports make sense as an online magazine instead of PDF 

The usage of the internet is not necessarily synonymous with environmental friendliness. Downloads in particular cause a huge consumption of electricity. Eventually, the potential environmental advantage of digital media vanishes completely when online documents and information are being unnecessarily printed.

Especially when you publish a digital sustainability report, which companies often do nowadays, you should consequently not do this in form of PDFs. The main goal in terms of sustainability is to avoid unnecessary prints wherever possible. And from an environmental point of view, this is where we find the top advantage of digital magazines. PDFs are statically single-use media, which are difficult to read digitally and are often printed out only to make reading more comfortable. Digital reports, on the opposite, are opened right in the browser, so downloading is not an option anymore.

Best practice: digital sustainability reports – made with Webmag

Sparkasse UnnaKamen

Click here for the digital sustainability report of Sparkasse UnnaKamen (German).

See example

meistro ENERGIE

Click here for the digital social and climate report of meistro ENERGIE GmbH (German).

See example

Conclusion

The question "Should I switch to digital completely to relieve the environment and from now on just read online?" cannot be answered with a “yes” in general. Holistically, the life cycle assessment depends on many different factors. An important step towards more ecologically responsible actions: Refrain from communicating through PDFs online - not only for financial, annual, social and climate reports, but in general. Apart from the fact that PDFs are not well suited for online communication anyway, readers won’t be tempted to download and print your reports or content.

Switch to digital now

Webmag allows you to easily create, publish, communicate and evaluate your digital reports, such as financial, annual, social and climate report. Simply send us your PDF report and we will create a digital sample view for you. Free of charge.

Request a digital sample view

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