ISSUU: Be Green

The Math

How many letters have you found crumpled up in your child's bag? How many newsletters were you given at school? 

In the United Kingdom alone there are 8.4 million pupils. Let's say that every student gets 1 letter a week, probably the weekly newsletter.

There are 39 schools weeks in a year so let's quickly do the math. If every pupils gets one letter a week that is a total of... wait for it...

...327,600,000 letters distributed in a school year. 

Each tree manages an average of 8,333 sheets of paper.This works out at 39,313 trees being cut down every school year for schools in the United Kingdom.  This is only 0.0006% of the 6 billion trees cut down every year worldwide but the numbers are still staggeringly high.

Let's add a couple more countries into the math and see the results...

China has 199 million pupils. Based on every child getting a weekly newsletter this is a staggering  7,761,000,000 pieces of paper every year! Meaning 931,357 trees are being cut down. This is 0.16%  of the 6 billion trees cut down every year worldwide.

If every pupil in the world were to receive one weekly newsletter, this would contribute to a total of 4.4 million trees being cut down every year!

Based on this schools are nearly responsible for 1% of trees being cut down every year! Based on one letter a week!

Of course the math, isn't concrete but what is for sure is that in education a lot of paper is used and that steps can be taken to reduce our carbon footprint.  Of course paper is needed in schools. The question we need to be asking is where can we save paper?

The Solution - ISSUU

ISSUU launched in 2007. The platform is a digital newsstand with over 25 million digital publications and over 100 million active users. ISSUU is a simple way of digitalising your school's documents.

Check out how simple it is to upload a publication to ISSUU;

With technology's growing influence in schools, it's confounding that paper publications and newsletters are still a regular occurrence in the majority of schools.

With ISSUU schools can simply include a link to the publication or even embed the publication within a weekly e-mail thus making the arduous task of making sure every child has a letter to go with home with a thing of the past! 

The Benefits

As well as the "green incentive" ISSUU has a wealth of benefits to bring to schools.  

1. Archiving: ISSUU is an online platform meaning whenever a publication is uploaded it stays on there and won't get lost! No more rummaging around the house for an old piece of paper about a school trip! Just simply log onto ISSUU and browse your publications using a simple search. 
2. Interactive: With ISSUU being an digital newsstand this brings new dimensions to the weekly school newsletter! Embed a Youtube Video, Flickr Gallery or even a Vine. The possibilities are now endless.  Make pages stand out by digitalising them! 
3. Unlimited Reach: If you have a paper newsletter, your'e likely to have one printed per pupil. This has a very limited reach. ISSUU  gives the newsletter an unlimited reach.  The publication is accessible to everyone worldwide. What a great way to promote your school! Show what fantastic things the pupils get up to, and stamp your own unique school brand worldwide! 
4. Cost Effective: The cost saving involved with digital publishing is staggering! Digital publications cut the cost of all paper resources. With the thousands of letters and publications schools hand out every year digital publishing can save schools a staggering amount of money! 
5. It's Simple to Use: Many people may be afraid that ISSUU is a complicated platform to use may and be scared by the term digital publishing, but it really is very easy to use. Don't be afraid and just try uploading a PDF for yourself, ISSUU really does the hard work for you!  

What else can it do? 

Revision guides on ISSUU

Here are some example of how ISSUU can revolutionise your schools resources. 

1. Revision Guides: Instead of having to give every child a massive revision book for every subject which will inevitability end up gathering dust or getting lost , why not direct them to ISSUU? With apps for mobiles and tablets it's increasingly likely that having digital revision guides  may be far more beneficial for pupils of the modern era. Guides won't get lost and schools will save plenty of money not having to replace new books !
2. Learn a language : Explore the world with ISSUU!  There are literally thousands of publications to enhance the learning of modern languages in schools such as French or Spanish, and why not teach other fun languages? Guides to count to ten in Mandarin or learning how to ask for directions in Greek! ISSUU is a fantastic aid for learning languages!  
3. Homework: Why not set the children a reading task? Assign a publication from ISSUU for the pupils to read. If a religious studies teacher wanted to get the pupils to read a  story from the Bible or the Quran, just e-mail a link and a page number to the pupils? Upload a PDF of all homework tasks for the term? ISSUU really creates a new dimension for homework! 
4. Prospectuses: Marketing for prospective pupils is a massive business for schools. As well as having printed prospectuses, why not upload your schools prospectus to ISSUU? This means the school will never run out of prospectuses and it will again give the prospectuses unlimited reach. This is particularly beneficial for international boarding schools! 
5. Learn an instrument: ISSUU has thousands of resources for learning new instruments! For example use publications to direct students to a guide for learning basic guitar chords for so they will always have a reference! 

ISSUU can be used for a variation of reasons. It can be used for just uploading your weekly newsletters or it can be used as an educational newsstand! Help students learn a language or market your school online! 

Go ahead and try out ISSUU and see what it can do for your school...

We would love to here any thoughts you have on how your school could use ISSUU, please comment below.