It is widely thought that sending information by email is kinder to the environment than traditional print mail, but document software specialists Sefas Innovation warn of the hidden environmental impact of email, suggesting that its carbon footprint is already on a level with that of traditional mail and could risk getting out of control.

Giles Hill, managing director of Sefas Innovation, likens the infrastructure of the internet, comprising many millions of servers and home computers, to traditional postal mail's delivery infrastructure: "Servers and personal computers are the mail delivery vans and postal workers of the internet," he says.

"Google alone requires around one million servers to store its data. Those servers are using a vast amount of energy on a daily basis and an even larger amount of energy is used to keep them from overheating.

"This greater access to more and more information has contributed to the huge growth in office-based printing and the impact that this has on companies' carbon footprints," Giles comments.

"Many organisations forget this when they are persuaded to ditch their traditional print mail communications for internet-based alternatives. Companies believe they are switching to a greener communication format but this is simply not the case," he said.

A recent white paper published by the post sorting company Pitney Bowes supports the notion of the hidden carbon footprint from sending emails, showing it to be on a par with standard mail delivery in terms of carbon emissions.

The white paper shows the ITC sector and the paper industry to be responsible for approximately two per cent of all carbon emissions each, citing the high level of emails being printed off by recipients (equating to 1.5x the amount of literature received by post) and the energy required to support the internet's infrastructure, as the key carbon culprits for email.

"An even bigger environmental threat is caused by the hardware itself," Hill continues. "People update their PCs far more frequently than they do other environmental pollutants like cars - and the end result is a mountain of electronic waste that is growing exponentially."

According to the Environment Agency, Electrical and Electronic Waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the UK, without around 1.8 million tonnes generated every year and increasing by at least five per cent year on year - 39 per cent of this is made up of discarded IT equipment.

"By contrast, more paper waste from print mail is being successfully recycled every day as the paper industry strives to achieve its own Green 15 mandate to improve environmental performance across the board," adds Hill.

"Our industry is working hard to ensure its continual environmental improvement, while over 12.5 million computers ended up in landfill in the last five years alone. The grass is most certainly not as green as it appears to be on the other side of the fence."

For more information about Sefas, e-mail contactuk@sefas.com, or visit www.sefas.com.

ENDS

For media enquiries, contact Corrina Cockayne at Venture Public Relations on 0845 223 9889, or 07765 404616.

Editor's Notes:

About Sefas
Sefas Innovation provides collaborative document composition & production software to document-intensive businesses. Founded in 1990, Sefas has a global presence with offices in France, the UK and the US; and clients that include many Fortune 500 names.

In 2008 over 10 billion pages were printed and mailed (or published electronically) using Sefas Open Print software to create, to improve or to manage the production of documents such as bills, statements, quotations, contracts and schedules.

Sefas has a strong partnership and alliance programme with some of the world's largest outsourcing business; with all leading printer and inserter hardware manufacturers; and with a wide range of complementary software publishers.

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Further Information

Venture Public Relations
Corrina Cockayne
Managing Director
Tel: 07765 404616
Email: corrina@vpublicrelations.co.uk

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