Readly, the digital subscription service, has announced its 2021 Sustainability Report which provides insights into the all-you-can-read digital magazine and newspaper app’s environmental, social and governance performance. The highlights include a 14 percent lower energy intensity per FTE and a 36 percent increase of potentially avoided emissions from digital reading when comparing 2021 to 2020.

The report outlines Readly’s long term ambitions within sustainability such as climate friendly reading, the empowerment of readers and providing responsible content. Key findings of the report include:

● Reading a digital magazine on the Readly platform results in 86 per cent lower greenhouse gas emissions than reading the printed equivalent. The reduction in CO2 emissions in 2021 corresponds to approximately 15 400 tonnes of CO2e, or the equivalent to the emissions of producing and recycling over 240,000 iPhones.

● Readly’s 2021 climate study results indicate a 36 percent increase in avoided emissions from reading digital. The reduced emissions can be traced to two major contributors – renewable energy used for data storage and a change in reader habits.

● The energy intensity per FTE was 14 per cent lower in 2021 compared to 2020. The main reason was a higher share of renewable energy and a continued high share of employees working remote.

– We address sustainability on many fronts, including lowering our own carbon emissions and helping customers reduce their CO2 emissions by digital reading. We firmly believe that our biggest contribution is empowering readers to become more educated, inspired to live a sustainable lifestyle and turn into more conscious consumers thanks to their consumption of journalistic content. With a new strategy in place and targets for 2022, we can better track our progress and make sure that our contributions in shaping a more sustainable world are optimised, says Mats Brandt, interim CEO Readly.

Other findings of the Sustainability Report include:

Positive social impact

● According to Readly’s global user survey, more than 50 percent of 25,000 respondents say they spend more time reading since they started using Readly. They also read a wider variety of categories and also read titles they never read before.

● In order to give readers more widespread and varied choice, Readly has set a 2022 target to increase the total reading time by 15 per cent through product developments that help users to easily discover new content.

● Readly was placed on Allbright’s Green List for Equal Gender Balance 2021 that monitors gender equality in the management teams of listed companies in Sweden. Readly has a 45/55% ratio of women and men on the Senior Leadership team and among those who have leadership responsibilities at Readly the split is 50/50%.

Corporate governance impact

● Following the Company’s commitment to diversity, a Board Diversity Policy has been established to promote diversity and inclusion through identifying and suggesting Board Member nominees with a broad range of skills, experience and knowledge, including criteria of diversity such as gender, age, and nationality.

● During 2021 the anti-corruption part of the Code of Conduct has been strengthened, and an Environmental Policy has been developed.

● Readly has appointed several employees to form a Sustainability Committee who will be responsible for identifying and executing activities in order to achieve the annual targets defined in Readly’s sustainability strategy.