Going Green With Mail

There was an article in Sunday's (Nov 2) Hartford Courant, by Anne Hamilton, discussing whether snail mail or electronic mail has the smaller carbon footprint. While the answer would seem obvious, a study commissioned by Stamford CT based Pitney Bowes Inc., a manufacturer of postage meters and other products used in conventional mail, commissioned a study of the carbon dioxide emissions generated by paper mail.

The report, completed in June, was inconclusive stating that, "a broad-based comparison of the carbon footprints of mail and e-mail is impossible", noting that electronic communication is harder to measure. According to Hamilton, the report states that the information and communications sector of total electronic communications represents about 2% of the nation's total energy use which is about the same as the energy requirements of the paper industry.

She goes on to say that the report notes that typical office workers print 1.5 times more pages of documents than the total mail each worker receives both at home and at work. So much for the "paperless office".

You can read the complete article at the Hartford Courant's website.

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03 Nov