Is what you are reading contributing to a Hazardous Environment?
Most people who purchase magazines and receive a mailbox full of advertising & promotion materials in all shapes and sizes may not be thinking about these traditional forms of communication in terms of how environmentally conscious it is or is not. There has been a digital revolution, as digital technology has evolved considerably over the past decade, and with all the pollution that has been brought about by other forms of recent technology, we ought to consider the increasing use of the digital edition.

What consumers probably are not aware of, may be that the benefits of digital editions of your favorite print materials could furthermore offer benefits to our environment. Here is how you can Join the Readolution!

Top 5 Green Advantages of Digital Editions

Global warming has become an indisputable issue. The consequences of human produced CO2 emission and the carbon footprint is impossible to predict, and some day it may be too late to deploy your green initiative.

Digital editions of magazines, catalogs, brochures, reports or other kinds of collateral obviously have environmental benefits compared to traditional hard copies. Here are five green advantages of digital editions:

Digital editions prevent deforestation. The most obvious green advantage is that a digital edition is paperless. Each year a lot of trees are used for printed versions. In US alone magazine publishers consumes more than 2.2 million tons of paper each year, while the consumption for catalogs are up to 3.6 million tons. Now that’s a lot of trees and by offering digital editions, you can save your share of the trees.

Digital editions fill no landfills. Each year a lot of hard copies end up on landfills. Magazine Publishers reports that even though at least two-thirds of the US-based population has access to magazine recycling in their community, only 20 percent of printed magazines are recycled. Visiting a digital equivalent only consumes a bit of power and obviously a used digital version does not have to be recycled.

Digital editions contain no ink, dyes, adhesives or waste water. Producing a print version of magazines, catalogs or other collateral requires chemicals – primarily from ink. Although the print industry have been trending towards reducing heavy metals in ink and using biodegradable chemicals, printing is still a process that has an environmental impact. Again, this issue does not exist with digital issues.

Distribution of digital editions consumes no gas. Distribution of physical versions requires physical transportation. And transportation consumes huge amounts of fossil fuels to ensure your prints reach your target audience, which contributes to CO2 emission. By using digital editions the distribution is as green as it gets. As Zmags hosting facilities are carbon neutral the CO2 emission from reading a digital issue is reduced to the small power consumption from the reader’s computer.

The marginal CO2 contribution of digital editions is zero. The biggest green advantage from digital editions is that readers access it on-demand no matter how big an audience you approach. In the printed world the only answer to deliver on-demand is overproduction of publications. In the magazine industry, for example, the main reasons for overproduction are to avoid empty magazine racks and to keep high circulations in order to maximize advertising rates. The result is that 60 percent of all copies reaching the newsstands are never read. In 2001 that accounted for 2.9 billion magazines, which basically are waste. With digital issues delivering content to your audience on-demand no resources are wasted and you can expand your scope without environmental impacts.

Read more about Zmags green solutions for creating and customizing digital editions.