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The Environmental Impacts Of Paper And Digital Business Cards

8 Dec 2022
deforestation

Background​

Environment impact of paper card

While it’s difficult to trace back the exact origin of the first paper business, according to ChatGPT, the concept of exchanging cards with personal or professional information can be traced back to ancient China, where individuals used “visiting cards” made of paper or other materials to announce their arrival or convey messages.  In Europe, the tradition of exchanging calling cards became popular among the aristocracy and upper classes during the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

Exchanging paper business cards has long been the tradition, culture and essential part of doing business.  To better look into the impact of using paper business cards, the research team at Sogar, the leading digital business card platform for individuals and teams, has analysed the situation based on the statistics number collected from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, Environmental Paper Network, University of Minnesota, Sciencedirect, CreditDonkey etc.

 

In this analysis, we will explain how we calculated the environmental impact of using paper business cards.

Introduction

1. Tree Destruction

Let’s first find out the average weight of a paper business card.

 

Although the average weight of a paper business card can vary depending on factors such as the paper stock used, the dimensions of the card, and any additional features such as embossing or coatings, most business cards are printed on cardstock paper with a weight ranging from 250 to 350 grams per square meter (gsm). Using this range of paper weights, and considering the standard dimensions of a business card (typically 3.5 x 2 inches or 8.9 x 5.1 centimeters), the weight of a single business card falls within the 1.6 to 2.5 gram range.  For the purpose of our analysis and to make it simpler, let’s assume each paper business card weighs 2 grams.

 

Therefore, to produce 100 billion business cards at 2 gram each, it requires 200,000 tons of standard paper.

According to the Environmental Paper Network (EPN), approximately 24 trees are required to produce 1 ton of standard paper [2].  

 

Number of trees destroyed every year : 24 x 200,000 = 4.8 million

2. Water Usage

According to the University of Minnesota, The US benchmark for water use within pulp and paper mills is approximately 17,000 gallons/ton of paper [3].

Gallon of water consumed every year : 17,000 x 200,000 = 3,400,000,000 Gallon

factory

3. Carbon Emission

Simply put, 1 ton of paper requires destroy of 24 trees and 17,000 gallons of water.

 

According to the World Bank, the pulp and paper industry is the third-largest industrial water consumer globally, accounting for approximately 6% of total industrial water withdrawals (World Bank) [3].

 

Additionally, the energy-intensive nature of paper production contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. The combustion of fossil fuels in pulp and paper mills releases carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and other pollutants into the atmosphere, contributing to air pollution and climate change. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the paper industry was responsible for approximately 20% of industrial air pollution in 2015 (EPA) [4].

landfill

4. Waste Creation

What’s even worse, statistic shows that a 88% of paper business cards handed out get thrown away in less than a week [5].  How about the other 12%?  Will they go into someone’s contact list or straight to the bottom of a drawer?  Now, let’s just look at the 88% of waste to the landfill.

 

Weight of waste created every year : 88% x 200,000 = 176,000 ton (or 176,000,000 kg)

Environmental Impact

Given all the numbers we have come up, what exactly do these mean for you?

  1. Individual

Assuming one person will use approximately 300 paper business cards every year and have 45 years of employment, this will be a total of 13,500 paper business cards:

  • 65 trees
  • 460 gallon of water
  • 73 kg of carbon emission
  • 83 kg of waste

 

  1. Corporate

Let’s take the estimation stated in the previous section that every staff is using approximately 300 paper business cards every year, here you go a summary showing how companies of different sizes are creating positive impact to the environment by going digital.

company contributing to environment

Conclusion

Whilst there’s an obvious environment impact from producing and using paper business cards, companies can reduce their carbon footprint and save the planet by going digital.  Because digital business cards do not require physical paper, they can be shared with recipients electronically and instantly without any limit of number of times.

 

Any detail of information of the digital business card can be updated in a real-time fashion thus reduce the demand of re-ordering and re-printing of paper business cards whenever a new employee joins or someone gets a promotion or transfer of team.

 

Branding does matter!  Switching to digital business cards can significantly impact your company’s ESG branding image. 

Act Now

Create a digital business card with Sogar now!  Going digital not only creates significantly positive impact to the environment, but it’s also more cost effective than consuming paper business cards and boost your return on investment.

 

Sogar has solutions to companies at all sizes, no matter you are an individual or coming from big enterprise.  Contact us now!

References

[1] CreditDonkey. “Business Card Statistics”

https://www.creditdonkey.com/business-card-statistics.html

 

[2] Environmental Paper Network (EPN). “Paper to Protect the Planet”

https://environmentalpaper.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/EPN-recycled-fiber-fact-sheet.pdf

 

[3] University of Minnesota. “Water Use in Pulp & Paper Mills”

http://www.mntap.umn.edu/industries/facility/paper/water/

 

[4] ScienceDirect.  “Uncovering energy use, carbon emissions and environmental burdens of pulp and paper industry: A systematic review and meta-analysis”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032118302636

 

[5] Adobe Blog.  “4 Business Card Statistics that Will Make You Rethink Your Strategy”

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2016/10/26/4-business-card-statistics-that-will-make-you-rethink-your-strategy

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