Gabbi Lobo, Chloe Robinson and Bente Stoop

How can the analysis of carbon emissions at each stage of a book’s life cycle contribute to an understanding of the overall carbon footprint of the book publishing industry?

Keywords: Australian publishing industry, carbon emissions (CO2e), carbon footprint, carbon/emissions reduction, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), lifetime emissions, pulping, recycling

Introduction

The carbon footprint of a book, throughout its life cycle from ‘cradle to grave’, is an indicator of a book's overarching environmental impact. Yet, despite over 69 million books being sold in Australia each year, there is a striking lack of research on the environmental impact of a book being written, published and sold within Australia. For the purpose of this article, the life cycle of a book is divided into the following stages:

• Writing and pre-production encompasses everything from book proposals and manuscript creation, to design, typesetting, market analysis and forecasting.
• Materials and production spans across everything from growing and logging trees to the three stages of papermaking: pulping, bleaching and finishing.
• Distribution and warehousing occurs throughout all stages of book production. It encompasses the transport, storage and warehousing of all forms of material. This includes printed books and unprocessed materials, such as paper, wood and ink.
• Sales includes all forms of contemporary retail—including online sales, book deliveries, library borrowing and traditional brick-and-mortar bookshops.
• End-of-life refers to the disposal of a book after consumer use, or, if unsold, disposal of stock by a publisher or bookseller.

What does existing research tell us?

In order to make environmentally conscious decisions throughout the bookmaking process, it is essential to understand the carbon footprint—defined by Wiedmann and Minx as ‘a measure of the exclusive total amount of CO2 emissions that is directly and indirectly caused by an activity or is accumulated over the life stages of a product’—of a book. In 2023, Brackpool and Martin released Recommendations on the CO2e emissions calculation in the publishing industry for printed books, which provides publishers with resources to calculate the carbon footprint of each book they produce. While this is important for publishers looking to calculate their impact, it provides no solutions. Moreover, it relies on international data which may not be accurate or relevant for Australian publishers wishing to apply this to their own processes.

There are several key studies that explore the intersection of carbon footprints and publishing within specific geographic contexts, including ones from the Danish publishing industry, the Chinese publishing industry and the Croatian publishing industry. However, there is no commensurate study of, or research into, the Australian publishing industry that takes into account the specific geographical and other challenges faced in Australia. The importance of a location-specific carbon map cannot be overlooked, should the Australian publishing industry want to promote its reputation as being environmentally sustainable.

A comprehensive lens encompassing the whole life cycle of a book is key in making significant changes and carbon mapping can create useful insights into the carbon footprint of each stage, which is helpful in looking at the overall environmental impact.

However, without a standard framework, findings are inconsistent and run the risk of invalidation.

Case study: ‘cradle to grave’ in the architecture industry

Here, we turn to the architecture industry and their advances in carbon mapping to understand how we can learn from research advances in adjacent industries. We’ll discuss how buildings are designed—from the materials used in the ‘cradle’, to when they’re in use, to the ‘grave’.

From the ‘cradle’

Life cycle analysis (LCA) is made up of four stages—goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory (LCI), life cycle impact assessment and interpretation—and became internationally recognised in 1997. Although LCA is intended to calculate the environmental impact from ‘cradle to grave’, it is possible to apply it to individual stages as long as there are set parameters.

In a study on clay tiles produced by the S. Quirico brickyard in Italy, Badino et al. used LCA to assess the impact of three different types of bricks—fired, clay and adobe. According to their research, ‘the brickyard fully recycles wastes generated during the production phases.’ Their study mapped both the gross energy required, as well as the global warming potential, of each of the three types of bricks along each stage of that brick's production.

Their calculations showed that unburnt bricks have a significantly lower amount of CO2 emissions, indicating that the firing stage has one of the biggest environmental impacts in the entire process.

In this example, the LCA method demonstrates its ability to focus on each individual aspect of a production process to figure out where emissions are highest and so where interventions can be most impactful.

To the ‘grave’

Another study by Yeung et al. used LCA to look at environmental impacts of high performance buildings, which focus on optimising energy consumption and carbon emissions reduction. They looked at two separate buildings in the United Kingdom (UK) and Luxembourg, focusing on the necessity of advancing current simulation tools (programs that project 3D models of buildings) to help design and manage buildings. However, they identified a gap in the research regarding incorporating other methods alongside LCA.

To combat this, the article suggests co-simulation, meaning to use two or more different methods of simulation to reach the best possible outcome. While co-simulation in the architecture industry is not customary, this illustrates how it can be possible to use a newer method in other industries. Thus, the publishing industry should be able to calculate both the environmental impact and home in on specific areas while using LCA.

In this example, they co-simulated three different scenarios for both the building in the UK and the building in Luxembourg. The first scenario was standard occupancy and operation before 2020, the second reflected occupancy and operation in 2020, and the third was a modified version of scenario two with a reduced heating load.

For the building in the UK, they found that the reduced occupancy and operation in 2020, due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, had a reduction in its environmental impact by 56%, while the environmental impact in the heating scenario was reduced even further by 61%. Looking at these different scenarios made it possible to figure out which patterns of use from the buildings’ inhabitants impact the environment the most, and at which stage they have the most impact. This also means it might be possible to simulate when to intervene and change the way a building is constructed to reduce maximum environmental impact.

They performed the same simulations on the building in Luxembourg and found that during the 2020 simulation, the environmental impact was reduced by 72%. In the third scenario, an even bigger reduction of 74% was calculated.

Interestingly, the interventions in these scenarios showed a great decrease on the building's environmental impact in months like February to May, but less in months like June and November. With the exception of November, this illustrates that the impact of heating could be greatly reduced in the colder months.

Although these examples are vastly different types of buildings, they both show the effectiveness of using LCA to calculate the environmental impact of each separate stage of the building’s lifecycle, from ‘cradle to grave’, allowing for more targeted sustainability efforts.

Case study: carbon mapping the life cycle of a book

Utilising a similar approach to LCA, we map a hypothetical book, calculating the lifetime emissions a book generates in an attempt to flag the stages that have the greatest carbon impact and, in turn, identify where the most significant environmental impacts can be made. For this purpose, a ‘book’ represents a simple paperback book of 1 kg of paper. Where data from the Australian industry is unavailable, international sources have been used.

Writing and pre-production

In the writing and pre-production stage, the carbon emissions (CO2e)—the total emission of greenhouse gases including methane and nitrous oxide—produced are largely under-investigated in the current literature. Furthermore, with the recent increase in employees working from home, simultaneous tracking of in-house and off-site CO2e emissions is difficult to calculate. The emissions from electricity usage and data storage will both be excluded from the following data map as they are present in both in-house and off-site work.

One factor of note is that one of the key differences in CO2e emissions between the two forms of work is employee travel, to and from work. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Value Chain Standard on Employee Commuting provides the following calculations to determine distance-based emissions associated with employee travel.

According to data from 2022, the average vehicle emission factor, which is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by an activity, for Australian cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) was 0.179 kg CO2e/km that year. Using this data, we can come up with an example of the amount of CO2e emissions associated with an employee’s travel. For our article, we’ll assume that an employee drives an average of 10 km to work, 3 days a week, for 50 weeks per year, emitting 537 kg CO2e per year, or 3.58 kg CO2e per day.

Materials and production

This stage is the most laborious. It includes emissions from logging and factory machines, from the extraction and production of all necessary materials like inks and glues, and the printing and binding process.

Logging is undoubtedly a major factor in this stage’s carbon emissions. Native forest logging in Victoria emitted around 3 billion kilograms of carbon in 2021, a number equal to the emissions of over 700,000 cars. However, as logging companies distribute across a variety of industries, it is difficult to determine an accurate percentage of emissions attributed to pulp and paper. The Confederation of European Paper Industries estimates that the average CO2e emissions for paper production in Europe are around 0.78–1.32 kg of CO2e per kg of paper, depending on the type of paper and the efficiency of the production process.

From here, the paper is then printed on and bound, a process that Wells et al. calculate to emit an additional 0.23 kg of CO2e per book (when calculated in a print run of 10,000 books).

Distribution and warehousing

The distribution and warehousing stage includes all stages of transportation—from paper farms to bookstores, distribution centres and storage warehouses. Since different modes of transport are designed for varying distances, they emit different amounts of CO2e, making it necessary to calculate CO2e by transport type. The below tables focus specifically on road transport due to the availability of data.

Data on warehousing is largely unavailable due to variations in size, infrastructure, and possible in-warehouse cooperation with other industries, as well as a substantial lack of industry-based research. Further research is needed in this area to produce a comprehensive LCA.

Sales

The sales stage follows the path a book takes from the warehouses to the hands of a consumer. This includes books sold in a physical bookstore or online.

When looking at books sold in traditional brick-and-mortar stores, we can apply the same equation associated with employee travel to the workers’/consumers’ travel to the bookstore [see infographics 1 and 2]. These emissions can be reduced if individuals choose alternative travel methods—for example, by foot, bike or public transport. Additionally, using a paper bag for purchases consumes 0.36 megajoules (MJ) of energy, the equivalent of 0.0317 kg of CO2e per bag.

When looking at books sold via online retailers, we can apply the data from the distribution and warehousing stage to determine the emissions associated with delivering the book directly to the consumer [see infographic 6]. These online sales will also incur emissions associated with packaging materials for delivery and the operation of online retail platforms. Williams and Tagami calculated the energy use of a single wraparound cardboard package, designed to carry one book, to be 3.9 MJ. However, more research is needed on the emissions of online retail platforms to achieve a complete understanding of this stage.

End-of-life

There are multiple paths a book can take during its end-of-life. The most environmentally conscious of these include selling or donating the book to second-hand bookshops, libraries, or to pass the book along to someone else.

If the consumer does not choose those above options or if the book can no longer be reused, it is disposed of. Mirković and Bolanca provide the following statistics on three versions of book disposal: paper burning, recycling and being sent to landfills.

While paper recycling and disposing of books in landfills emit similar amounts of CO2e, recycling paper still emits less CO2e than the production of new paper from raw materials. Paper recycling emits about 1.4 kg of CO2e per kg less than the production of paper from raw fibres.

Carbon mapping

Using the data collected above, we have constructed the below map to show carbon emissions throughout a book's life cycle. Each stage within this following map has been labelled as either emitting carbon (+), removing carbon (-) or having no impact (0).

Sections of the data missing or unavailable in the current literature are listed in the map as ‘amount undetermined.’ All other sections have been labelled with directions to the relevant equation above.

Total emissions

In collating this research to deduce the emissions of our hypothetical book throughout its life cycle, we will look at a print run of 10,000 books. For simplicity, we will assume that our book sells evenly online and in-store, and they are disposed of equally across the three disposal methods.

Using this information, we can calculate the lifetime emissions of one book to be:

• 179 kg of CO2e in the writing and pre-production stage
• an average 10,500 kg of CO2e in the material and production stage
• 1,470 kg of CO2e in the distribution and warehousing stage
• 1,828.5 kg of CO2e in the sales stage
• an average of 6,666 kg of CO2e in the end-of-life stage

This results in an average of 20,643.5 kg of CO2e emissions across the entire print run of 10,000 books, equating to about 2 kg of CO2e emission per book (excluding emissions unable to be explored in this paper).

Case study: analysing life cycle stages of e-readers

Life cycle of e-readers

Introduced in the late 1990s, e-readers have further risen higher in popularity since the launch of Amazon’s Kindle in 2007 and have been regarded as a more environmentally friendly way to consume written media.

Multiple studies on the validity of this claim have been conducted by comparing the carbon footprint of these devices to that of physical books. We’ll use the framework put forward by these studies to inform our own stage-based life cycle assessment for physical books. As Moberg et al. expressed in their study of hard-copy newspapers vs various digital forms of newspapers, ‘a life cycle perspective covering raw material acquisition, production, use and disposal, should preferably be used to study the environmental performance of the products’.

In 2008, Maslennikova, Shin and Wang examined the life cycles of a physical textbook and of e-readers to determine which had more environmental impact. They broke down the life cycle of each (physical book and e-readers) into five key stages [see fig 7a and 7b], compared to Princeton University Press’ Lifecycle of a Book, which does not include manufacturing or disposal in their analysis.

As seen in the above graphics, the life cycle stages of the e-readers [see fig 7b] are laid out more clearly and in-depth than the textbook’s life cycle [see fig 7a]. We can understand the elements within each stage, letting us visualise not only where, but also why certain stages are more impactful than others, especially if this five-stage method is used in conjunction with carbon mapping. Applying this to the life cycle of a printed book would further inform our interpretation of future findings.

Application of e-reader life cycles to the life cycle of printed books

While the above method provides a strong foundation to build on, there are also many gaps that the proposed five stages do not cover. In a Japanese study, Tahara et al.'s research on the life cycle’s greenhouse gas emissions of e-books vs paper books poses a key factor that dramatically reduces the calculations of carbon emissions in the use stage. ‘Use-time scenarios’—which, for paper books is calculated by having ‘all processes [divided] by the number of times the book is read’—reduces the environmental impact of the book. However, this is not normally considered when looking at the life cycle of physical books.

This framework also does not consider any pre-production processes in the life cycle. Moberg et al., in their European study, additionally included ‘editorial work’—a factor often overlooked—in their calculations of carbon emissions and found that there was indeed an impact, albeit a comparatively small one. They also concluded that the environmental impact of each form differed based on which stage you look at, which further demonstrates the need for an in-depth framework (with multiple stages) for the life cycle of a physical book.

Figure 8 is our proposed life cycle structure based on the studies detailed above. Rather than completely redefining the five main stages mentioned in the introduction of this study (writing and pre-production, materials and production, distribution and warehousing, sales and end of life), a stage labelled ‘use’ has been added prior to the end-of-life stage.

Further research

Further research is required into the use of books after customer acquisition to achieve a better understanding of how consumers are likely to use their books, and what they might do after they’ve finished with them. It is also important to note that this research was not conducted in Australia and hence while the research on e-readers is helpful in informing our understanding of the life cycle of printed books, the findings are not transferable.

Carbon mapping would be the most effective way to gain an in-depth understanding of the carbon emissions of a book across the various stages of its life cycle, contributing to a holistic view of the overall carbon footprint of the book production process and enabling targeted impact reduction initiatives.

Findings

While a more thorough LCA of a book's life is needed to improve the overall carbon footprint of the publishing industry, this clearly cannot be achieved without further research into the different areas of the Australian industry.

Although our research demonstrates that the materials and production stage causes the greatest environmental impact, this number cannot be relied upon due to the vast number of holes remaining in the research, such as data from the writing and pre-production stage. Further research into more efficient distribution practices, or prioritisation of local printers/publishers, could be a quick step toward decreasing the distribution stage’s impact.

Further study is additionally needed on the impact of different energy sources and how these impact the amount of carbon emissions. This includes whether green energy has a positive or negative impact on carbon emissions when making paper or printing books.

The Australian publishing industry needs to look at both the research undertaken by international publishers and adjacent industries, such as the Australian architecture and construction industry, for examples of best practice for mapping and understanding the scope of their carbon emissions. The industry can then strive to emulate these best practice standards in pursuit of improving the overall environmental impact.

In comparing the life cycles of e-readers and print-books, researchers will be able to consider what structural changes can be made to the latter in the hopes of formulating a more comprehensive framework. In turn, when used in conjunction with carbon mapping (or other means of measuring environmental impact), this framework can serve as a stepping stone towards a greener future within the Australian print publishing industry.