How green is the new iPad - part 6: comparing the carbon footprint of the new iPad and iPad 2

After a short break we're back with our 7-part series in which we explore the carbon footprint and environmental impacts of the new iPad, compare it to those of the iPad 2 and try to figure out if Apple has made any progress from environmental perspective with its new iPad and what's the new breakeven point between books and ebooks on the iPad.

On every part of the series we're looking into another part of the carbon footprint of the new iPad. We already covered production, energy efficiency, packaging, restricted substances and recycling. Today we're looking at the total carbon footprint.

Total carbon footprint:

Here is the information on the total carbon footprint of the new iPad (source: Apple's report):

	Emissions
Production	120.6
Customer use	45
Transport	10.8
Recycling	3.6
Total	180

Here is the information on the total carbon footprint of the iPad 2 (source: Apple's report - revised version):

	Emissions
Production	85.8
Customer use	29.9
Transport	11.7
Recycling	2.6
Total	130

Comparison between the carbon footprint of the new iPad and the iPad 2:

	new iPad	iPad 2	Change
Production	120.6	85.8	40.6%
Customer use	45	29.9	50.5%
Transport	10.8	11.7	-7.7%
Recycling	3.6	2.6	38.5%
Total	180	130	38.5%

Our take: The picture is very clear - the new iPad has a significantly higher carbon footprint comparing to the iPad 2. Other than transportation, where we see some decline in emissions, all the other parts of the life cycle of the iPad have became more carbon intensive.

Bottom line: Apple is doing a poor job when it comes the carbon emissions of the iPad, not ensuring that a newer version will also be a greener one from a carbon footprint standpoint.

Next part on our series: Breakeven point for ebooks vs. books

Here are the parts of the series that were released so far:

Part 1 - production
Part 2 - energy efficiency
Part 3 - packaging
Part 4 - restricted substances
Part 5 - recycling

More resources on how green is the iPad can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ipad.asp

More resources on the ebooks vs. physical books environmental debate can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Which Christmas tree is greener - a plastic tree or a real one?

An interesting article of John Collins Rudolf on the New York Times provides somewhat surprising reply: A plastic tree.

This reply is based on a comparative life cycle assessment of artificial vs. natural Christmas tree conducted by Ellipsos, an environmental consulting firm in Montreal. According to the article, Ellipsos found "that an artificial tree would have to be reused for more than 20 years to be greener than buying a fresh-cut tree annually. The calculations included greenhouse gas emissions, use of resources and human health impacts. "

As always the environmental consideration is not the only one, but given that over 50 million artificial Christmas trees will be purchased this season, according to the industry’s main trade group, compared to about 30 million real trees, this is definitely something to take into consideration. Especially when, according to the article, after six to 10 years of use, most of the plastic trees will end up in a landfill.

So if you still consider which tree to buy, read it on the NYT website . Here's also a short video summarizing the article:




Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

Great visual comparison on Newsweek between e-books and books (and a little correction)

Newsweek published yesterday this interesting visual comparison between e-books and books (as part of another great article by Malcolm Jones):






















You can see it in full size by clicking here.

They even referred to the carbon emissions of e-readers vs. physical books and quoted a break-even point of 40-50 books. I believe they used this figure is taken from Goleman and Norris' life cycle analysis, and it is much higher from the break even point we found when we looked into it, which is 17.4 books.

Also, if I'm right and their figure is based on Goleman and Norris' work, then I think there's a little mistake here - according to Goleman and Norris "when it comes to global warming, though, it’s 100 books". The figure of 40-50 books mentioned in their analysis with regards to "fossil fuels, water use and mineral consumption." The analysis of Goleman and Norris is available at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/04/opinion/04opchart.html

As I mentioned, our figure is 17.4 books and is based on the following calculations (you can read more about it on our analysis of the iPad's environmental report):

For this comparison, I'll use the figure of 7.46 kg of CO2 to represent the lifecycle carbon emissions of an average book. This figure was presented on the Cleantech report (The Environmental Impact of Amazon's Kindle) and according to the report based on three independent studies that used life cycle analysis calculators to assess the impact of raw materials (I know it's much higher from the figure of 4.01 kg presented on the 2007 'Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry' report, but I believe it helps to make the comparison more balanced).

Now, according to Apple's lifecycle emissions of an iPad (Wifi and 3G model), its carbon footprint is 130kg CO2e. So, comparing between the two gives us the following equation: 1 iPad = 17.4 physical books.

In any case, we definitely agree with the bottom line of Goleman and Norris that is also quoted here - walking to the library is still the most eco-friendly way to read.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting Sustainable Reading!

How green is your iPad? Analysis of the iPad's environmental report (Part 1)

Apple published on its website the iPad's environmental report, and for us this is a great opportunity to find out more answers in our quest to determine if the iPad, Kindle and other e-Book readers are a greener way to read books comparing with physical books.

Today we bring you the first part our analysis of this report, which will be is focused on the iPad's carbon footprint. Tomorrow we'll bring you the second part which will focused on the other environmental and social impacts of the iPad that are described on the report, as well as the ones that are still missing.

Before we start, we have to say a good word here. By publishing this report on their website, Apple is doing something that none of the other companies that sell eBook readers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble bothered to do so far. So Kudos to Apple for this move and we can only hope others will follow suit. We believe it's this information is viable and all consumers should have it available.

Part 1 - Carbon footprint:

Apple provides here for the first time he total lifecycle emissions of an iPad (Wifi and 3G model) 130kg CO2e. The components of the iPad's carbon footprint are detailed in this graph:


As you can see, production is the biggest contributor (58%) followed by consumers use (30%), transport (11%) and recycling (1%).

Now, when we have Apple's official carbon footprint figure, let's try to compare it to physical books.

For this comparison, I'll use the figure of 7.46 kg of CO2 to represent the lifecycle carbon emissions of an average book. This figure was presented on the Cleantech report (The Environmental Impact of Amazon's Kindle) and according to the report based on three independent studies that used life cycle analysis calculators to assess the impact of raw materials (I know it's much higher from the figure of 4.01 kg presented on the 2007 'Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry' report, but I believe it helps to make the comparison more balanced).

So, comparing between the two gives us the following equation: 1 iPad = 17.4 physical books.

It means that if you put aside all the other uses of the iPad, then from a carbon footprint point of view, it becomes a more environmental friendly alternative option for book reading once you finished reading your 18th book on your iPad.

This result is quite surprising. If you look for example at the life cycle analysis of Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris, which was presented on the New York Times Op-Ed piece, How Green Is My iPad?, then you'll see that their conclusion regarding the break even point was that "When it comes to global warming, though, it’s 100 books."

So, does it make the iPad a greener way to read books? Well, let's see. Firstly, how much time it will take the average person to read 18 books? According to the Cleantech report 1 billion books are sold every year in the U.S. With a population of about 300 million people it means every person in the U.S. is reading about 3.3 books a year. Another source is the Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts report, which mentions that 3.1 billion books were sold in 2006, which is an average of about 10 books per a person. So let's assume the number of books is 3-10 per a year.

Taking these figures in account, it seems that it can take anywhere between 1.8-6 years for an average reader to reach the carbon break even point of 18 books. So if you're an avid reader, there's a good chance iPad is a greener option for you. For the average and below reader it depends of course on how much time you'll actually have the iPad. I doubt if anyone who bought it this year for example will still use the current version on 2016. They'll probably move to a newer version or another device during this time frame.

But wait a minute, carbon emissions are not all. What about the the environmental impact of the materials used, waste and even the working standards in the manufacturing facilities (which came up lately with regards to the suicide cases in the Chinese company Foxconn that is one of Apple's main suppliers)?

These are all issues that should also be taken into consideration. Carbon emissions are an important factor, but just part of the big picture. We'll address these issues tomorrow on
our second part of the analysis of the iPad environmental report.

More resources on the e-Books vs. physical books environmental debate can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting Sustainable Reading!

Comparing the carbon footprint of a search on Google and a Yellow Pages directory

Following my post on the Yellow Pages directories, I received an interesting question on LinkedIn:

All this is based on the idea that internet & generally dematerialization is more "eco-friendly" that the old paper-way. Are we sure about that? Sustainable business is full of "false good ideas". Is there any comparative LCA (Life Cycle Analysis)?

This is a great question and since I am not familiar with such a life cycle analysis I decided to prepare one of my own. Of course not all the data is available and I made couple of general assumptions on the way, but I hope that you will find the results valuable.

OK, so here we go:

For our comparison we will use the figure 12 billion searches, which is the number of annual searches made using the printed directories as reported by the Yellow Pages Association ("People reference print Yellow Pages directories more than 12 billion times while Internet Yellow Pages sites receive 4.6 billion references each year").

Option 1: Google search
So what's the carbon footprint of 12 billion Google searches?

Following an estimation of Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross that was published on the Times Online on January 2009 (5-10g of CO2 per a search), Google announced Google that a Google search produces about 0.2g of CO2. Aleksandr Rudkevich, Vice President in the Energy & Environment Practice of Charles River Associates, analyzed Google's input and explained that this is an average figure. He calculated the worst case scenario (from a pollution point of view): "Applying this to the Google spate earlier this year, if the Google search is powered by coal-fired generation, the 0.0003 kWh of electricity it requires will result in about 0.3g of CO2 emissions, or 50% above Google’s average estimate." We'll use this figure for our analysis.

The equation therefore is: 0.3g x 12 billion = 3600 tons of CO2

Option 2: Yellow Pages directory search
1. Every year, according to Paperless Petition, 540 million directories are distributed in North America. I'll take off 30% of this figure, as the sustainability report claims that "The demand for directory paper has declined 29 percent since 2006". 540M X 70% = 378M

2. I don't have the carbon footprint of an average directory, so I'll use available data to get a good estimate. According to the Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts report, the carbon footprint of a book is 8.85 lbs. The Cleantech's report says it's 16.4 lbs per a book. Let's do an average - 12.63 lbs per book, or in grams - 5,729 grams (5.73 kg) of CO2.

To be fair, let's consider the fact that the directories are "containing 40% recycled content. The other 60% comes from "residual chips," a byproduct of sawmills left after logs are converted to lumber.". For our analysis let's calculate it as 100% post recycled paper. Using the EDF paper calculator, we find that we need to deduct 42% of the initial calculation of 5.73kg as usage of recycled paper has a much lower carbon footprint. So, the equation is: 5.73 X 0.58 = 3.32 kg of CO2

3. Our final calculation is: 378 million x 3.32 kg = 1,254,960 tons of C02

[Please note that even if you use the number of 130 million directories that I used initially, based on information on the Yellow Pages website that for some reason I can't find now, you receive a carbon footprint of 431,600 tons of CO2).

Bottom line: Using Yellow Pages directories to make 12 billion searches has a carbon footprint that is 348.6 times higher (!) of using Google on your computer for the same purpose. Again, it's 1,254,960 tons of CO2 vs. 3600 tons of CO2. I believe these figures speak for themselves.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

5 comments on How Green Is My iPad?

The New York Times published last Sunday an Op-Ed piece, How Green Is My iPad?, written by Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris. Norris and Goleman present there the life cycle analysis (LCA) they made, comparing e-books and physical books in an attempt to figure out "which is more environmentally friendly: an e-reader or an old-fashioned book?". Their conclusion was as followed:

So, how many volumes do you need to read on your e-reader to break even?

With respect to fossil fuels, water use and mineral consumption, the impact of one e-reader payback equals roughly 40 to 50 books. When it comes to global warming, though, it’s 100 books; with human health consequences, it’s somewhere in between.

This Op-Ed was no accidental. A day earlier Apple released its iPad and as it reported later on 300,000 iPads were sold in just one day (including pre-orders). So it definitely looks like there's a greater need than ever in such a life cycle analysis and we congratulate Goleman and Norris for their important work. Do we have any comment or feedback? of course we do :) Here they are:

1. Looking for more transparency

Goleman and Norris justifiably mention that "some technical details — for instance, how those special screens are manufactured — are not publicly available". Many times we called here Amazon, Apple and other e-reader manufacturers to be more transparent and share with the public the information required for preparing a full LCA. We believe that greater transparency will work in their benefit eventually and hope they will show everyone they have nothing to hide.

At the same time, I was hoping to get more details on the LCA itself. The newspaper included just the summary of it, and although I'm sure Goleman and Norris did a great job, I was hoping they will publish somewhere the full assessment, sharing with the rest of us all the data and their and calculations. I'm sure it will only be beneficial for the process.

2. Where are the trees?

According to the 2008 'Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry' report, which was prepared by the Green Press Initiative (GPI) and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), the biggest contributor to the industry's footprint was using virgin paper - forest and forest harvest are responsible to 62.7% of the industry's total carbon emissions. Cleantech's report "The Environmental Impact of Amazon's Kindle" also stated that "Paper is responsible for almost 75 percent of the publishing industry’s carbon footprint".

And still, I couldn't find any word on Goleman and Norris' LCA about trees and the environmental impact of their harvest to make paper. They only mention minerals and water. Did I miss anything here?

3. What's the footprint of driving to your bookstore?

Goleman and Norris calculate that "Driving five miles to the bookstore and back causes about 10 times the pollution and resource depletion as producing it.". Now, if by pollution they also refer to CO2, then I've got a little problem with the result.

The LCA doesn't say how much CO2 a physical book pollutes, but according to the Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts report, it's 8.85 lbs, in carbon dioxide terms. The Cleantech's report says it's 16.4 lbs per a book. Now, if we look at the CO2 emissions of a car driving 10 miles, then according to NativeEnergy Travel Calculator, it's between 4.4-15.4 lbs, depending on the car you're driving. In any case, it doesn't seems to be close to 10 times the pollution of producing a book, which can roughly be calculated from the two reports we mentioned as 5.5-10.25 lbs (if you take into consideration just the harvesting part which is 62.5% of the total carbon footprint).

4. So which option is more eco-friendly?

Well, if we look at the results and ignore for a minute all the missing information that is still not available or the differences between the e-readers, then it's still a tough call. As they mention in the results, the break even is anywhere between 40-100 books, depending on the factors you're taking into consideration.

According to the Cleantech report 1 billion books are sold every year in the U.S. With a population of about 300 million people it means every person in the U.S. is reading about 3.3 books a year. A survey of AP in 2007 found that "A quarter of US adults say they read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year and, excluding those who had not read any books at all, the usual number of books read was seven." Another source is the Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts report, which mentions that 3.1 billion books were sold in 2006, which is an average of about 10 books per a person.

In all, it seems that it can take anywhere between 4-13 years for an average reader to reach the lower break even point of 40 books. Will that be enough time? well, we'll need to see what will be the lifespan of the iPad, but I've got the feeling that under these circumstances, for an average reader, physical books might be a greener option. If you're an avid reader, the iPad or the Kindle is probably the preferred alternative from an environmental perspective.

5. The best option - walking to your local library

Goleman and Norris write at the end of their piece that "All in all, the most ecologically virtuous way to read a book starts by walking to your local library." We couldn't agree more. The only question is how many people actually use their library services and walk, or even bike, all the way there?

More resources on the e-Books vs. physical books environmental debate can be found on our website at www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

New report finds Kindle greener than physical books - is that really so?

On August 19 Cleantech Group published a report that was supposed to put an end to an ongoing debate on the question if the Kindle and other e-readers are actually greener than physical books. The release's title was "E-readers a win for carbon emissions."

It was supposed to be the life cycle analysis many people, including myself were waiting for. I have to admit I was very excited to read about it as we follow this debate for a long time. I decided to read it and see if this is really it. If it's really over.

The report, entitled 'The Environmental Impact of Amazon's Kindle' was written by senior reporter Emma Ritch. I read the executive brief (7-page long) and was happy to find a well-written analysis that integrates many pieces of information that together create a more coherent picture. At the same time I wasn't that sure about the validity of the findings.

There were two main issues that bothered me mostly: the carbon footprint of a single Kindle and the assumption about the number of e-books the average user is reading. As you'll see these are important factors in the analysis and have significant influence on the findings.

Here are my thoughts about them in more details:

1. What's the carbon footprint of a single Kindle?
This is an important part of the analysis - you can't have a comparison between physical books and the Kindle without this figure. But fortunately the report has it:

"...the second-generation Kindle represents the same emissions as 15 books bought in person or 30 purchased online. That would yield a range of between 60.2 to 306 kg of CO2, or an average of 167.78 kg of CO2 during its lifespan."

The problem is with this estimate (Kindle has the same emissions as 15 books bought in person or 30 purchased online). This is not a figure provided by Amazon. The report is explaining that "Amazon declined to provide information about its manufacturing process or carbon footprint". This report takes this figure from a "Los Angeles-based architecture and construction firm Marmol Radziner Prefab used the IDC lifecycle analysis calculator."

I went on to check how Marmol Radziner Prefab come out with this number if Amazon doesn't provide any data and found on their website that "One of our architects recently gave the calculator a whirl by estimating the carbon footprint of Amazon’s new Kindle Wireless Reading Device. " OK, but how did he do it? they explain: "He answered a few questions and found that the Kindle has the same footprint as 30 paperbacks ordered from Amazon’s store. So if you’re going to read more than 30 books on your Kindle, it’s greener to purchase the digital reader than the paper copies."

Given the fact that Amazon doesn't provide any data (well, we have to say the report mention that Amazon has established a recycling program by mail for Kindle and its batteries to prevent the improper disposal of e-waste), this figure looks to me as a guestimation. In any case, an experimental use of an architect with the IDC lifecycle analysis calculator is far from being something you can take into an account in an analysis, especially when you don't have any second or third sources to verify it.

You can see how vague this figure is from the attempts of Green Inc. blog to figure it out. They tried to check it with Amazon and got no response (why is Amazon so unresponsive about it? would it be easier and better for them to be transparent about it??)

They also checked with Casey Harrell, an international campaign coordinator for Greenpeace, which monitors the environmental impact of consumer electronics, who said e-readers remain something of an unknown variable. “In terms of the Kindle or other similar e-book gadgets, I don’t know what chemicals are in or out,” Mr. Harrell said. “Companies will want to brag about their eco-credentials, so if you don’t see any mention, they’ve probably not been eliminated.”

To show you how game changing this figure is let's say the figure is not 15/30 books but 30/60 books. Then an average Kindle will emit 335.6 kg of CO2 instead of 168 kg during its lifespan. The meaning of the change of this figure is that the number of actual physical books offset per year per e-reader jumps from 22.5 to 45. It means that each reader will become greener than paper books only after it will replace 45 books and not 23 books.

The author, Emma Ritch, said to Green Inc. blog about the e-books that “The key is they displace the purchase of 22.5 physical books.”Following the uncertainty about the Kindle's carbon footprint, we have no way to know if this figure is the right key. Right now it looks like only Amazon has the right key and we still don't know what it is.

2. The number of e-books the average user is reading?

This is also an important figure required for the analysis, as it helps to estimate the effectiveness of the Kindle in replacing paper books. The author decided to use the estimation of Forrester, which is that each consumer purchases three e-books a month, or total of 36 e-books a year. She then explains:

"..so by adopting Forrester’s rate of three e-books a month, we forecast that the average consumer would purchase 144 e-books in four years, potentially displacing 1,074 kg of CO2."

Based on that number and the assumption that every 1.6 e-books purchased replace 1 paper book, she gets to the figure of 22.5 books a year which is the breakeven point - you read more on your Kindle and you're making it officially a greener alternative.

But will users read so many e-books? I doubt. This number is related to the number of books readers read (unless your assumption is that readers will read much more when they switch to e-books which is not the case here) and the number of books read in average tell a different story.

According to the report 1 billion books are sold every year in the U.S. With a population of about 300 million people it means every person in the U.S. is reading about 3.3 books a year (including babies which actually have many books, sometimes more than the average adult..). So as you can see there's some difference between 3.3 books per a person, which is based on real figures and the estimation of the report - 36 books per a person.

Now, it might be that Forrester's estimation (36 books) is correct, but it relates only to the avid readers which are the early adopters of the Kindle devices. What can happen to this number of books when 14.5 million units of e-readers will be sold in 2012? the report explains:

"Forrester estimates that each consumer purchases three e-books a month but that the average will drop when lower e-reader prices entice casual readers. Alternately, average purchases could increase as more books become available in electronic forms."

Still, is it OK to use the figure of 36 books per a year as the average number of books read by users? how many people you know who read 3 books every month? I decided to further check it and found a survey of AP in 2007 that found the following: "A quarter of US adults say they read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year and, excluding those who had not read any books at all, the usual number of books read was seven."

Another source is the 'Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry', which mentions that 3.1 billion books were sold in 2006, which is an average of about 10 books per a person.

So even if we take the higher alternative estimation of 10 books per a year, we get that instead of getting fully offset after the first year of use, a Kindle is getting offset only after 2.25 years of use.

The bottom line of the report is very clear:

"The roughly 168 kg of CO2 produced throughout the Kindle’s lifecycle is a clear winner against the potential savings: 1,074 kg of CO2 if replacing three books a month for four years; and up to 26,098 kg of CO2 when used to the fullest capacity of the Kindle DX. Less-frequent readers attracted by decreasing prices still can break even at 22.5 books over the life of the device."

So is the debate over? I'm afraid not. As much as the report contributes to clarify the debate on how green are e-readers, there are still some issues that need to be finalized as I showed here. I'm afraid that declaring the Kindle as a clear winner is still too early. The key to the podium is still in hands of Amazon - if they'll provide us with their data on the Kindle's footprint and maybe even life cycle analysis it would be then the right time to claim a winner.

For more information on ebooks vs. paper books visit http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp

If you are interested in studying the environmental impacts of materials and processes or other environmental topics, check out onlineuniversities.net

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net