With the increasing dominance of digital reading over traditional reading, gaining an understanding of the environmental impacts of the formats has become critical. This systematic literature review synthesizes and integrates the findings of studies comparing print reading with on-screen reading. The results reveal that the environmental impacts of printed and digital media depend on the usage rates and number of readers of both types of media as well as user behaviors and other parameters, and digital reading also has its own negative environmental impacts. Finally, research gaps are identified and a research agenda is proposed, including considering environmental performance in comparison studies, empirical investigations of actual user behaviors, and environmental savings for lending and sharing materials from libraries. This study aims to clear the misconception and change the popular stereotype that “e-reading is environmentally more sustainable than conventional reading,” and to provide stakeholders with more valuable information that is necessary to make environmentally informed decisions.

随着数字阅读对传统阅读的主导地位越来越大，了解这些格式对环境的影响变得至关重要。这篇系统的文献综述综合并整合了比较印刷阅读和屏幕阅读的研究结果。结果表明，印刷媒体和数字媒体对环境的影响取决于两种媒体的使用率和读者数量以及用户行为等参数，而数字阅读也有其自身的负面环境影响。最后，确定研究差距并提出研究议程，包括在比较研究中考虑环境绩效、实际用户行为的实证调查以及从图书馆借出和共享材料的环境节约。