When physical products are replaced by non-material substitutes the effect on resource use is obvious. This case is an example of absolute dematerialization. On the other hand there is also relative dematerialization, which is characterized by reduced material and energy usage “per unit of economic value produced” [2]. An example of relative dematerialization is a declining consumption of energy or raw-materials per Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is a measure of the value of all produced products of a country within a defined time period [3]. In other words, this means producing the same value with less resources needed.
So, beside the replacement of physical goods by virtual substitutes and reductions in the usage of large physical systems or infrastructures (e.g. videoconferencing instead of traveling to meetings), dematerialization also means producing less energy and material intense products. Such products are still physical, but may be lighter or smaller, or are manufactured in a more efficient way [2].
Dematerialization is often mentioned in the context of e-commerce. Trading via electronic networks allows processing business data electronically and enables to sell virtual products. There are several examples of dematerializing products, services and processes in commerce, like e-ticketing, e-banking, e-books or digital music [2].
E-ticketing is an approach to replace paper tickets by electronic tickets. It can be applied to all kinds of tickets or reservations for events, as well as tickets for public transport or flights. E-tickets, which are completely electronic, have to be distinguished from online tickets, that are purchased via the Internet and printed by the customer. The concept of e-ticketing usually differs from traditional tickets: Customers register online to an event or a flight and get access to the service by confirming their identity locally. The advantages that e-tickets provide to users are an increased safety not to lose tickets, as well as faster access to tickets, without having to visit ticket shops physically. Threats of e-ticketing systems are the possibility of system failures and user errors, as well as ticket fraud. Due to electronic distribution ticket agencies experience higher efficiency in order processing. A main application area of e-ticketing is the airline industry. A survey by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported that in 2007 88 percent of global passengers purchased electronic tickets instead of paper tickets [2]. Airline companies realize costs reductions by selling electronic tickets, which enables them to offer tickets at lower prices. The price reduction is accompanied by increased demand for airline tickets, which also means increased emissions from airplanes. This rebound endangers potential environmental benefits from e-ticketing, like reductions of travel routes, because tickets are purchased from home or mobile devices. The dematerialization of paper tickets is also considered to help slow down deforestation.
E-banking denotes banking services, that can be accessed electronically. Banking institutions enable their customers to consult their banking accounts via the Internet, providing almost all functionalities usually offered in branches, as well as offering additional services, for example real-time share trading. Also invoicing is done electronically, including billing and payment. In 2005, between 10 and 15 percent of all retail banking transactions in Europe where done online [2]. Data of the year 2010 shows the share of Internet users, who regularly (each month) access their banking accounts online (cf. figure 1). The diagram illustrates the obvious correlation of economic development and electronic banking usage. The highest rate was determined in Canada, where about 65 percent of Internet users use online banking services each month [4]. In the USA this rate is 45 percent, which indicates, that even within Internet users, more than half of them prefer conventional offline banking, representing that e-banking is still far from dominating banking services.
Figure 1: TOP 10 Countries by Online Banking Penetration (% of Internet users, age 15+)
[4]
One of the environmental benefits of e-banking are reductions of paper production and usage. This is caused paperless transactions and digital account statements, but can be offset by users printing their transaction confirmations or similar. Additional potential carbon savings could arise from reduced travel to bank branches. On the other hand the IT infrastructure needed for e-banking accounts for a certain amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions. At current state, it is unlikely, that e-banking already has positive environmental impact, but there is a certain potential of reductions in resource use. If transactions and banking services were done exclusively electronic, this would account for significant reductions in building costs, due to no longer needed branches. Today in fact, e-banking services supplement traditional services and therefore rather cause additional negative environmental impact, than reducing it [5].
Digital music is distributed as electronic music files, rather than on physical data carriers. These files can be purchased and downloaded from servers via the Internet and stored locally on hard disks or external storage (including CDs). In 2010 the global trade value of the digital music market was 4.6 billion USD, which accounts for 29 percent of the total industry revenue [6]. The music industries has therefore the second biggest share in digital distribution of all creative industries, just after the game industry (cf. figure 2). This depicts the high adoption of the Internet as distribution channel for music. In comparison to that the film industry only has a 1 percent share of revenues, and obviously still focus on conventional trade. Reasons for this may be piracy issues and the large amounts of data of video files compared to audio files. The environmental benefit arising from digital music is attributed to reductions in energy and resource use due to the lack of physical data carriers like CDs. Downloading music files cuts resource consumption by about 50 percent in comparison to conventional trade, or online shopping [2]. As no rebound effects of digital music have been identified, this form of dematerialization has still large potential for environmental improvements, keeping in mind, that the majority of music is still distributed on physical data carriers, as it is practiced by the film industry too.
Figure 2: Revenue shares of the creative industries in digital distribution [6]
E-books, e-zines and e-papers are terms for electronically published media that is conventionally printed, like newspapers, magazines or books. The possibilities provided by ICT range from web based solutions, which can be read online, to offline versions, which have to be ported to mobile devices (e.g. e-reader). Due to the proliferation of smartphones and tablet computers, the share of electronic media can be expected to grow, compared to printed media. Gartner analysts published forecasts stating, that the global sales of Media Tablets will rise from 70 million devices in 2011 to almost 300 million devices in 2015 [7]. Traditional computers and notebooks are not especially suitable for reading, due to usability and screen technology. Therefore tablet computers and e-readers are getting popular at the moment, since they provide better handling and are portable. In theory e-books save paper and the energy used in paper production, and consequently reduce deforestation. On the other hand the production of reading devices is quite energy intense and energy is needed for operation and disposal. The conclusion is that the environmental impact of e-books strongly depends on user habits. It is essential, how many printed books an e-reader replaces in it’s lifetime and how long this lifetime is, before the device gets replaced. A tablet computer or an e-reader produces about 130 to 170 kg of CO2e over its lifecycle, whereas a printed book accounts for about 4 kg [8]. Therefore a device would have to replace more than 40 printed books to reduce carbon emissions. But beside the energy needed for production also the used materials have to be considered. Paper books are made of wood, which is a renewable material. Electronic reading devices need plastics, metals and certain chemicals in production, which are materials with much more negative impact on the environment and human health than wood. Including these considerations into the calculation of the environmental impact of e-books, a state of the art electronic reading device would have to substitute more than 60 books to increase sustainability [8].
References
[1] L. Neves. Responding to the new challenge of ict-driven sustainability. Global e-SuStainability initiative (GeSI).[2] Bio Intelligence Service. Impacts of information and communication technologies on energy efficiency, final report. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ict/docs/sustainable-growth/ict4ee-final-report_en.pdf, September 2008. Accessed: 2013-02-12.
[3] J.H. Ausubel and P.E. Waggoner. Dematerialization: Variety, caution, and persistence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), vol. 105 no. 35:12774–12779, 2008.
[4] ComScore, Inc. Top 10 countries by online banking penetration. http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2010/10/top-10-countries-by-online-banking-penetration/, October 2010. Accesssed: 2013-03-06.
[5] B. Cushman-Roisin. Environmental impacts of e-commerce. http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d30345d/courses/engs171/eCommerce.pdf, 2011. Accessed: 2013-03-06.
[6] IFPI. Digital music report 2011. http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/DMR2011.pdf, 2011. Accessed: 2013-03-06.
[7] Gartner, Inc. Forecast: Media Tablets by Open Operating System, Worldwide, 2008-2015, April 2011.
[8] Green Press Initiative. Environmental impacts of e-books. http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/documents/ebooks.pdf. Accessed: 2013-03-06.
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