Environmental Impact of E-books and P-books

Abstract

To be responsible stewards of our world, the industrial sphere is required to engage in environmental conservation, especially when it comes to climate change. This is true for all businesses, including those that produce digital and physical books: electronic-books (e-books) and paper-books (p-books) , respectively. Japan's printing related companies are developing Product Category Rules (PCRs) and participating in ISO international standardization for the carbon footprint of products (CFP) regarding e-book and p-book production. In this report, I will introduce the activities the printing industry in Japan is engaging in to monitor and control environmental impact. Because printing is utilized for many products, the printing industry needed to establish a PCR for calculating CFP. The "Publishing & Commercial Printing (work in process) " PCR was established in 2009 and later revised in 2014 in order to reduce collecting data for calculation due to the spread of CFP. A PCR for e-media, including e-books, was established in 2013. The ISO international standard for CFP of print media products, including p-books, was published in 2013; a similar standard for e-media is under development. Comparing the life cycle assessment (LCA) results of e-books and p-books showed the hot spots for each value chain.