Two Sides Challenges the Veracity of Google’s ‘Go Paperless in 2013’ Campaign

• Google’s own environmental impact is astounding.

• Google uses 2.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. This would power 207,000 US homes for one year, or about 41 Empire State Buildings.
• Data centre power use accounts for roughly 2 per cent of the US's annual electricity consumption.
• For every kilowatt-hour used for computing in a typical data centre, nearly a whole additional kilowatt-hour is used for running cooling and heating systems.
• 100 searches on Google is equivalent to burning a 60 watt light bulb for 20 minutes, using 0.03Kwh electricity and 20 gms of carbon dioxide.
• 100 minutes of YouTube video is equivalent to burning a 60 watt light bulb for 13 minutes, using 0.02 Kwh of electricity and 13 gms of carbon dioxide.
• Every gmail user uses 2.2Kwh energy every year and generates 1.2kg of carbon dioxide.
• Greenpeace highlights that E-waste is now the fastest growing component of the municipal solid waste stream. In Europe e-waste is increasing at three to five percent a year, almost three times faster than the total waste stream. The amount of electronic products discarded globally has skyrocketed recently, with 20-50 million tonnes generated every year. Electronic waste (e-waste) now makes up five percent of all municipal solid waste worldwide.

• Studies have reached the conclusion that document reading, if intended to be read more than once or by several people, may be more environmentally friendly if printed.