This week at London Book Fair’s Sustainability Hub, Andri Johnston, Digital Sustainability Lead at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, joined a panel discussion about the lifecycle of a book and its impact on the climate. Andri spoke about Cambridge's commitment to digital sustainability; the actions we are taking to understand and reduce carbon emissions of our digital products, including our websites for Academic books, journals and Higher Education.  

Julie Dennis is Chief Technology Officer at Cambridge and has been focusing on providing product teams with guidance to create more sustainable digital products. In the interview below, Julie and Andri tell us more about Cambridge’s transition from print to digital.  

Andri: "The phrase is generally used to describe the process of transferring more of our publishing, research and exams products from a print customer focusing product, to a digital, usually online, website, customer facing product."

Julie: “At Cambridge, we have made a commitment to being carbon zero on all energy-related emissions by 2048, with a 72 percent reduction by 2030. The core of our business is assessment, content and publishing. Printing activities are the largest contributor to our organisation’s carbon footprint, at around 53 percent. When comparing the carbon emissions for paper content vs digital content, the digital equivalent carbon emissions is an estimated reduction of around 95 percent. Reducing our use of paper will also have the added benefit of reducing the carbon footprint of storing it and transporting it. 

“Taking all of this into account, to help reduce our impact on the environment, we are on a journey to move to digital. However, we must not forget that digital also has a carbon footprint. It is a complex but critical area of work for our teams that won’t happen overnight.” 

Andri: “The world’s digital carbon footprint is growing. Over 5.3 billion people in the world have access to the internet. Every single search query, every streamed video and every type of cloud computing is responsible for ever-increasing global demand for energy, and this has a direct impact on  CO2 emissions.  The production, storage, use and data transfer of digital devices causes more CO2 emissions than you might expect.  Various studies estimate the digital impact on carbon emissions to be between 2.3-3.7 percent of the total global CO2 emissions, equivalent to the aviation industry.” 

Andri: “Web design is a key area we have been studying when thinking about how to reduce our digital carbon footprint. To help ensure that website projects are energy efficient and produce the least amount of CO2 emissions possible, we partnered with Wholegrain Digital to produce a simple Sustainable Web Design guide. The guide includes sections on benchmarking, design, content, development and hosting and is publicly available for anyone to access and use.” 

Julie: “The paper industry has transformed considerably over the last 20 years, with most moving away from unsustainable deforestation practices. At Cambridge, over 95 percent of the paper we use to produce learning materials comes from sustainable sources working to prevent deforestation, preserve biodiversity and protect human rights.  We are working to increase this figure across our products.  

“The learning benefits associated with paper are particularly relevant for the education sector. Neuroscientific research shows that paper-based content offers special advantages in connecting with our brains. For example, print-based text is shown to be preferable for recall and comprehension. There is also an emotional attachment to paper that has value, just ask any parent who has ever read a bedtime story to their child. Does digital really work for this?”

Julie: “There are several points to consider. We are prioritising understanding the carbon emissions of our digital business, which we refer to as digital sustainability, and advancing our knowledge on reporting our digital carbon emissions.  

“The digital divide is something we must keep in mind. Accessing digital content requires devices, which are far less available in many parts of the world.  Keeping a low digital carbon footprint will help enable content to be accessible to all parts of the globe in an equitable way.  Our strategy at Cambridge to distribute digitally and print locally as needed can help close this gap.  

“There are ethical transformation considerations too. As we move from print to digital, there is a downstream impact to the supply chain, which could hurt existing industries, such as print or freight, and cause a negative impact to communities. In this transition, it is critical that we embed social sustainability thinking that includes lifelong learning and prioritises helping shift skill sets within communities.”  

Andri: “There are plenty of basic digital sustainability daily practices which can make a difference to your own digital carbon footprint. Digital Clean-up Day on Saturday 16 March is a great reminder of the importance of cleaning up our digital presence by cleaning our storage space, for example deleting old photos on your phone or unused apps. We recently shared some top tips to help people who want to reduce their digital carbon footprints.”