WhatTheyThink’s Going Green has joined forces with Two Sides to help address the “perceptions” that paper destroys forests, that electronic media are “greener” than print and paper, and that recycling is the solution to all environmental ills. As we mentioned last week, Facebook recently decided to share its carbon footprint, and other data points associated with its energy usage and procurement. To wit: “The total annual carbon footprint per monthly active Facebook user is 269 grams.” Why should you care? It is the Going Green Digest’s mantra that “All human activities have some kind of environmental impact, and trying to determine whether print or non-print media are inherently greener than the other is a fool’s errand.” We can look at the figure above and say, “Oh, that’s not a lot,” but when you consider that Facebook is not the only thing a given individual is likely to be doing electronically—they may also be on Twitter, watching video on YouTube, searching out things on Google, Skyping with relatives, friends, and...well, let’s just say others, etc., etc.—it will all add up. But this is not to say that we should be curtailing these activities in the name of sustainability—just as we should not be curtailing our use of print in the name of sustainability. These activities have value to us according to our preference, and the goal should be to make these activities more sustainable. And a big part of that is to know what the carbon footprint is, and how that can be reduced; where the energy comes from, and how it can be made to come from more sustainable sources; what the company’s commitments to sustainability are, and how they can be improved. This applies whether you are Facebook, Google, or a printing company. For more Two Sides facts see http://www.twosides.us/mythsandfacts.