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Working out if it’s better for the planet to communicate in print, or to do it digitally just got easier, sort of. ISO standards developers working on documents for graphics technologies, have written a document for calculating the carbon footprint of electronic media. ISO 20294 is moving into the final stages of its development and is expected to be with ISO to ready for final publication by the end of the year. This is by no means a definitive piece of work, but it is hoped that it will encourage better appreciation of the environmental impact of digital media. At best it’s a start, but you don’t get anywhere without making a start.

The problem is not unique to digital presses, but how do you measure energy usage and the overall energy efficiency of a machine? With cars the most usual method is the miles per gallon, or how many litres of fuel it takes to travel 100 kilometres. Just in this example we can see how slippery the actual values are, how subjective. For instance do the calculations accurately take into account traffic, hills, darkness or temperature? The problem with energy calculations is that there are so many variables involved. The data on which the averaged result is based is likely to be deeply buried, so using the result in a meaningful way won’t be easy or convenient.