[Zeke]

So, which costs the environment more? Paper docs handled person to person (mail, fax included) or electronic storage and transfer? Seems to me that every digital doc has a footprint given its initial production, electronic movement, printing (which is often the case) and indefinite storage on possibly multiple servers.

I can barely recognize the difference between a database and a file system, but that's academic. The question is about the overall energy and resources.

What muddies the issue are what I might think as 'hybrid' docs or those created partially by hand and partially digitally and then scanned into a system. A whole lot of that kind of thing goes on at the local ports that combined, is one of the largest port complexes in the world. No PARF intended here but unions trying to preserve man power work keep a lot of data in the analog world until it is finally digitized, distributed and ultimately stored by many different offices and even multiple departments within an agency.

I highly doubt this is a simple question with a simple answer. No black and white. But if it were that simple i.e., paper vs. paperless, which is on the upside?