We usually think about footprints of papers we are using daily on forests, water and other natural resources and the earth at large. However, CNN News published an insightful news article that showed that even inks and fonts used on digital document can contribute to environmental as well as economic costs. Suvir looked to how costly inks are being used in thousands of forms and documents. He found out that using Garamond font exclusively for documents produced by the US Federal government could save up to 30% of $467 million, estimated annual cost of ink by General Services Administration.

His research and empirical evidence are so powerful to be recognized by the Journal for Emerging Investigators and stand out remarkably bringing meaningful repercussions to not only public domain but also our personal daily lives. His idea should be appealing enough to ordinary people by showing scientific evidence and enumerating actual economic costs in a tangible way.

Behind the economic costs, I believe lie the environmental costs which need to be taken into account as the same time. If we add up those hidden environmental costs required in producing inks such as potential damages to water and air, gross cost of producing inks should be far higher than the economic cost, thereby making the cost reduction from Suvir's approach far larger than the sheer economic benefit.

For all these important implications aforementioned, the key is how people's perception can be changed as articulated by Suvir in his remark, "I recognize it's difficult to change someone's behavior. That's the most difficult part." So, as a step further, we should think of what kind of incentives we can introduce in a systematic way to help people translate their recognition into real perception for a need to act and actual actions to reduce usage of inks to minimize the economic as well as environmental costs.

CNN News Article and Picture URL: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/27/living/student-money-saving-typeface-garamond-schools/