Dear Friend of Building Science,

On the reverse side is the latest issue of Recent Research . Most of our reports deal with energy consumption in a building, but this research shows how such a narrow perspective causes one to overlook surprising energy savings possibilities. We introduce the concept of "material power" of activities or, in the case of photocopiers and printers, "paper power."

Another way to reduce the "material power" in offices is to reduce the weight of paper. Standard office paper is "20-pound" paper, which in metric units is 75 g/m². We copied this Recent Research onto 16-pound paper, which is 20% lighter than usual. Curiously, the paper is actually a little thicker than standard paper. We propose that standard copy paper be changed to 18-pound paper, or 10% lighter than today's standard, but we have been unable to find anyone who makes 18-pound copy paper.

The consequences of this conversion are significant: the US currently uses over four million tons of copy paper per year. Reducing this by 10% means saving 400,000 tons of paper per year, as well as up to several hundred million dollars in national energy, postage, shipping, and disposal costs.

For more information on paper efficiency, please see the Paper efficiency link on our World Wide Web page at http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/Buildings/. Also, please contact me if you have any questions or comments regarding buildings and other topics.

Sincerely yours,

Return to "Paper Power."

Return to Recent Research index.