Via the Ecopreneurist, new research, and a spiffy new infographic, that indicates that the paperless office is finally coming. People have been saying this for decades, but waiting for the paperless office has been rather like waiting for Godot. Still, TNS conducted the survey on behalf of the company Nitro, which makes PDF products, and found, among other things, that 32% of respondents felt that reducing paper consumption was “important” for environmental reasons (29% deemed it “very important”). And 44% said they planned to use “half the amount of paper” they currently use in the next 5–10 years. Uh huh—and Dewey defeats Truman. What’s interesting is looking at the specific paper applications that are being reduced. The top items are “will reduce use of physical mail” (60.1%), “will reduce use of newspapers” (48%), and “will reduce use of printing paper” (47.8%). (Curiously, 6.1% said they “planned to use less toilet paper.” Um, I don’t think there’s an app for that. Or at least I hope not.) Again, as I often point out, all of the things that are driving people away from paper have nothing to do with the environment, but have everything to do with speed, convenience, and cost. Which is faster and more convenient: setting up automatic bill pay through a bank’s Web site, or writing and mailing checks every month? Corresponding via e-mail and text messaging, or sending physical letters? Getting news online for free whenever you want it, or subscribing to a newspaper? That is, people are reducing their use of these things anyway. The fallacy is in thinking that they are doing it for environmental reasons—or in thinking that less environmental impact is a happy coincidence. What—and I am speaking hypothetically—if it were conclusively proven that electronic media in fact had a negative environmental impact compared to paper? Would people be likely to give up the speed, convenience, and reduced cost of electronic media? I think not.