Green news reading: online or in print?

According to a little known 2007 study, reading news online has about the same environmental impact as reading a print newspaper.

The Sweden-based research team measured the environmental impact of online and print news.

For print, they measured the carbon emissions from editorial work, producing the newsprint, transporting paper to printer, recycling the paper, and disposing of papers that don’t get recycled.

For online, they measured emissions from editorial work, online layout, production of the computer used to read news, downloading the news, and electricity used to read the news.

If both are read for the same amount of time, around the same amount of energy is used.

However, most people read news more quickly online – meaning that online is more energy efficient if you have a shorter reading time.

E-reader tablets are the most eco-friendly way the read news, the research said, using less energy than both online and print news reading.