Paper Weight
October 25th, 2006 by Carbon Coalition“Heavy Reading” has suddenly taken on a whole new meaning. A recent study published by the Heinz Center estimates that one copy of Time Magazine produces on average .29 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. If you’re one of the many who receive a weekly copy of the magazine, that adds up to an estimated 15.8 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions a year–and that’s only one of the magazines filling up your mailbox.
The Heinz study, reported in this article in the New York Times, with participation from Time Inc. calculated the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the entire publishing process of Time and In Style. Heinz studied the magazine making process from the breaking down of wood fiber to the distribution of the product. Donald Carli, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Communication, says “there’s a hidden life that products have, and one of the challenges of sustainability is to make these lives known.”
With the results in hand, Time Inc. has pledged to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout every step of the process. It hopes to begin reduction efforts by asking its paper mills, which account for the majority of the emissions in the magazine-making process, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2012.
