Ancient cloud storage
The Library of Congress already digitizes more than 10 terabytes of new content every day—roughly the storage you’d need for 50 million scanned pages daily.
Mega archive
Paper vs. Digital Impact — Trees, Water & Energy Saved
Inputs
📄 Paper
Recycled paper adjustments (optional)
Trees saved only apply to the virgin share. Energy & water are blend-adjusted using these factors.
💻 Digital
Awareness-level estimator. Mill technology, recycled content, device efficiency, and reading behavior vary widely. All factors are editable.
Results
How the Calculator Works
- Sheets avoided: pages ÷ (pages per sheet) ÷ (1 + duplex bonus). Duplex% assumes half those prints use both sides.
- Paper mass avoided: sheets × g/sheet ÷ 1000 → kg.
- Trees saved (est.): (virgin share of mass) × (1 ton / 1000 kg) × trees/ton.
- Water saved: weighted water per kg (virgin vs recycled factors) × kg paper avoided, minus digital water (not modeled here).
- Energy saved: weighted energy per kg × kg paper avoided − (digital energy per page × read pages).
Tip: Try 4–6 g per A4 sheet (80–100 gsm). Adjust recycled share and factors to mirror your supply chain or LCA source.
Paper vs. Digital: What the Numbers Mean
This tool translates “pages moved to digital” into a rough estimate of trees, water, and energy saved. Office paper varies by mill technology, recycled content, and paper weight. Likewise, digital reading varies by device, time-on-screen, file size, and network mix. That’s why every assumption here is transparent and editable. Treat results as directional and focus on the category magnitudes rather than precise decimals.
Key Drivers
- Sheet weight: Heavier paper increases mass and therefore water/energy per page.
- Recycled content: Reduces trees saved (only the virgin share uses trees) and often lowers water/energy intensity.
- Duplex & N-up: Printing two-sided or multiple pages per sheet reduces sheets used for the same content.
- Digital energy per page: Dominated by device power and data transfer. Highly efficient devices and caching reduce it.
- Open/read rate: If not all digital pages are actually opened, digital energy falls accordingly.
Nuance & Limits
- Trees per ton is an estimate that varies with species and forestry practice. Keep it editable and use your preferred reference.
- Water and energy intensities differ by mill, fuel mix, and recycled inputs. Regional LCAs will be more precise.
- This tool does not model ink/toner, printers, devices, or end-of-life impacts; it’s a lightweight comparison to guide decisions.
Tip: Save a shareable link after tuning assumptions—handy for before/after comparisons or policy proposals.
5 Fun Facts about Paper vs. Digital
Paper by the slice
A single mature pine tree can yield about 80,000 sheets of copy paper. That’s just six banker boxes—burn through a few boxes a month and you’re a tree a year.
Sheet math
E-ink runs on peanuts
Reading a novel on an e-ink reader can sip less energy than brewing a cup of coffee, because the screen only draws power when you turn a page.
Sipping pixels
Duplex doubles exabytes
Global double-sided printing already saves an estimated 27 exabytes of digital storage equivalent per year—the data you’d need if every sheet stayed single-sided and had to be scanned.
Two-sided magic
Paper towns reborn
Some Nordic mills convert their waste heat into district heating, warming entire towns while producing recycled paper—so your saved pages might keep saunas cozy.
Circular warmth