Low-Tech Magazine's Compressed Book Edition: A Sustainable Publishing Experiment

Low-tech Magazine, known for its low-energy website, has released a 'compressed' edition of its book series. This single volume condenses three previous books, reducing paper consumption and carbon emissions by nearly two-thirds through smaller fonts, images, and a two-column layout. The article compares the environmental impact of online and print reading, revealing that while the website's server footprint is low, reader device energy use is significant. The compressed edition lowers costs and tree usage, though recycled paper is explored as an ideal but practically limited solution. Ultimately, content compression, rather than paper choice alone, offers the greatest resource reduction.