The Compressed Edition is available in our bookshop as a paperback and hardcover.
In 2018, Low-tech Magazine launched a low-energy website that runs on solar power. To reduce energy use and make the content accessible for readers with old computers and slow internet connections, we opted for a back-to-basics web design, optimising image and file sizes, as well as using a static site generator instead of a database-driven content management system. In 2019, we also launched a book edition of Low-tech Magazine, which consists of three volumes with articles and one volume with comments.
The Compressed Book Edition
While a book looks and feels more low-tech than a website, it has an environmental footprint as well. Industrial book publishing and distribution involves wood harvesting, pulp and paper production, printing, ink-making, and lots of shipping throughout the supply chain. Even if the wood for paper production is harvested sustainably, which is rarely the case, all these processes require energy and produce carbon emissions.
To address these issues, and to keep practicing what we preach, Low-tech Magazine has now made a “compressed edition” of the chronological book series. Inspired by the image compression on our website, we squeezed the article catalog of three volumes into just one book. Consequently, we reduced the paper consumption and carbon emissions by almost a factor of three. The compressed edition contains 84 articles and over 700 images on slightly more than 600 pages.
We did this by switching to a smaller font size (similar to the one used in the comments book), by downsizing most images, and by opting for a two-column layout. I rewrote some articles, especially older ones, resulting not only in fewer pages but also in better articles. Laia Comellas and Marie Verdeil collaborated on the design of the compressed edition.
Books or Website?
Ever since the launch of the book collection, readers have asked what is most sustainable: reading Low-tech Magazine online or on paper? While it’s a relevant question, comparing the carbon emissions of books and websites is complex and somewhat pointless. There are so many variables influencing this calculation that you could tilt the result toward your preferred answer.
Comparing the carbon emissions of books and websites is complex and somewhat pointless.
A crucial factor is the time spent reading. If you only read a few articles, reading online likely has a lower carbon footprint. But, if you read all articles, and maybe even go back to them regularly afterward, the difference between online and offline reading becomes smaller. For the books, all carbon emissions occur before the reading process starts. In contrast, the more time you spend on the website, the higher the carbon emissions. 1
There’s another difference between online and offline reading: Unlike a website, a book can be read by more than one person without raising its carbon emissions — for example, when it’s available in a library. 2 Books usually have very long lifetimes, between 25 and 500 years. 3 Therefore, they can be read by dozens of people. That is especially the case for hardcover books, which take a bit more resources to produce than paperbacks but are more resistant to abuse.
Carbon Emissions & Energy Use
To estimate the carbon emissions of Low-tech Magazine’s books, I used a study of a 320-page hardcover book weighing 0.75 kg. 3 According to the researchers, the complete production process of the book has a carbon footprint of between 2 and 3 kg of CO2-equivalents, depending on what happens when the book is discarded after 25 years (landfill or recycling).
The three “uncompressed” paperback books together weigh 2,531 grams, which corresponds to an estimated carbon footprint of between 6.7 and 10.1 kg CO2-equivalents. For the compressed edition, at 929 grams, the carbon footprint comes down to between 2.48 and 3.70 kg of CO2-equivalents. These numbers are surprisingly high compared to the carbon footprint of Low-tech Magazine’s web server, which we calculated to be 9 kg CO2-equivalents per year. 4 Although our web server runs on solar power, these carbon emissions result from producing the solar panel, the battery, the solar charge controller, and the printed circuit boards, measured across their estimated lifetime.
However, the book does not require any infrastructure to be read, while the carbon footprint of our web server is only one part of the total footprint of the website. Readers of the website need a computer to access it, and the resulting energy use and carbon emissions of powering and manufacturing that device should also be included. Assuming 60 hours to read all the articles, a laptop power use of 25-50 watts, and the average power grid carbon intensity in Europe (300g/kWh), the power use of the laptop would add between 0.45 and 0.90 kg of carbon emissions for reading content online.
To this should be added the energy that was required to manufacture the laptop and the power grid (of which in both cases only a part can be attributed to reading Low-tech Magazine). Because life cycle analyses show that the energy used for manufacturing a laptop surpasses its operational energy use, we can — conservatively — double this result to between 0.90 kg and 1.8 kg of CO2-equivalents. 5 Because our website uses very little energy, almost the complete carbon footprint of Low-tech Magazine is due to the devices of our readers.
The book needs to be read by at least two to three people before its environmental footprint becomes smaller than the one caused by reading all Low-tech Magazine articles online.
Nevertheless, this carbon footprint is still lower than the 3 kg of CO2-equivalents for the compressed book edition. Although this is a very rough estimate, it seems to suggest that this book needs to be read by at least two to three people before its environmental footprint becomes smaller than the one caused by reading all Low-tech Magazine articles online. Of course, we have set the bar very high for ourselves because of our light-weight website. Compared to the old blog, which was much more carbon-intensive than the solar-powered website, the compressed book edition — and perhaps even the uncompressed book edition — would be the more sustainable option even if it is read only by one person.
How Many Trees Have We Cut Down?
The environmental footprint of books does not only show in carbon emissions. Books are made from paper, and paper is — nowadays — almost exclusively made from dead trees. With close to 10,000 Low-tech Magazine books sold, an uncomfortable question pops up: how many trees did I kill? That is not an easy question to answer, because the only reference I could find says that “one tree can produce 25 books” 6, without specifying what size of tree or type of book these numbers refer to.
Nevertheless, if this estimation is valid, the Low-tech Magazine books would be responsible for chopping down roughly 400 unspecified trees. Whether or not these trees were replaced by other trees, I have no way of knowing. However, by reducing the page number from 1,700 to a little over 600 pages, at least the Compressed Edition attempts to limit this resource use.
Compressing the content — an editorial and design choice — produces a larger reduction in resource use than printing on recycled paper could ever do.
Low-tech Magazine’s “tree consumption” could be further reduced by printing on recycled paper, and we would probably do so if our book distributor and printer — Lulu — would offer that option. However, printing on recycled paper is not a panacea. Paper can only be recycled a couple of times before it needs to be incinerated or landfilled.
Partly because of this, and partly because of economic growth, there is not enough recycled paper available to print the ever-increasing number of books that are published each year. If Low-tech Magazine prints on recycled paper, it means that someone else won’t. Moreover, printing on recycled paper often increases the carbon emissions of paper production. 3 Compressing the content — an editorial and design choice — produces a larger reduction in resource use than printing on recycled paper could ever do.
How Many Books are Thrown Away?
The carbon footprint and wood consumption of an individual book only tell a part of the story. Most environmental damage in the book industry is done by overproduction. A very large number of printed books are not sold but discarded before anyone can read them. Overproduction occurs in two ways. First, most books that come on the market fail commercially, which is a consequence of the business strategies of book publishers. 7 Large publishers invest in a massive number of titles in the hope that one will become a bestseller.
Second, higher print runs significantly lower the printing costs per copy, and thus encourage overproduction. To give an example, printing 100 copies of a 600-page book costs 7,3 euros per copy, while printing 1,000 copies costs only 4,30 euros per copy. 8 As a result, it can be more profitable to print more books and discard the unsold copies. Even books that are in demand can be thrown away. For example, unsold copies at events are usually destroyed rather than sent back to publishers because it’s cheaper. 9
A less wasteful approach is printing on demand, in which a copy only gets printed once it is bought. In this case, there is no waste unless a book is printed badly. However, the energy use and carbon emissions per printed copy are probably higher, with the printing equipment taking a larger share in the total resource use. The printing costs are much higher, too (around 15 euros per copy for a 600-page book). 10 Almost all Low-tech Magazine books are printed on demand, but we can only do this because we have our own direct sales channel (the website). If books are sold through Amazon or in bookstores, print-on-demand results in a very high sales price or a very low profit for the book publisher.
Other Low-tech Magazine Books
The launch of the compressed edition does not mean that the “uncompressed” books will no longer be for sale. They will be redesigned in the next months, reflecting the same changes in articles (shorter and better) but printed with a larger font, larger images, and a one-column layout. Their carbon footprint will decrease compared to the earlier volumes but in a less spectacular way. Nevertheless, while those uncompressed books remain the most comfortable option for reading Low-tech Magazine, we expect a significant part of potential buyers to opt for the more compact edition, as it provides the most bang for the buck.
Obviously, “compressing” the books also addresses printing costs, which have skyrocketed in the last few years. Higher printing costs result in a higher sales price and a lower profit, or both. The compressed edition allows us to roughly halve the sales price for the whole archive while maintaining two-thirds of the profit. For the redesigned uncompressed editions, a more modest reduction in the page number will allow us to keep the current sales price but restore the profit per copy to pre-pandemic levels — important for the survival of the magazine. After all, people buy books for the content they contain, not for their weight on paper.
Ebooks and Thematic Books
The Compressed Edition is part of an ongoing research project into the sustainability of Low-tech Magazine’s publishing operations. Apart from the solar-powered website, we have introduced ebooks (2024), and these are perhaps the most sustainable option to read Low-tech Magazine. We also started the publication of a thematic books series (2023), aimed at people who are only interested in certain topics and themes of Low-tech Magazine. The ebooks and thematic books are made in collaboration with Marie Verdeil.
Book Launch Event
We hold a book launch event in Barcelona on March 28.
