What makes a difference for environmental performance of online newspapers?

The media sector is becoming increasingly digital and newspapers are most commonly published online as well as on paper. For printed newspaper, paper production is the main reason for environmental impacts according to several studies performed, but for online newspapers the environmental impacts are not as well studied. The cur-rent study looked into key factors influencing the potential climate change impact of online newspapers using life cycle assessment. The main contributors to the climate change potential of the Finnish online newspaper studied were: in the case of using a computer, manufacturing of the device followed by electronic distribution, and in the case of using a tablet device, electronic distribution followed by manufacturing of the device. Geographical loca-tion, lifetime and total active use of the electronic devices are important factors when assessing the environmental impacts and so is the type of device used for accessing and reading the online newspaper.