Nº 42 – Reader Survey

Saturday, July 4th, 2020

How do you produce a magazine and, at the same time, continue to reduce your CO₂ emissions? This pandemic, which has caused us all to reflect upon our behaviour, our possessions, our work and our relationships with those we love, our friends, neighbours, clients and subscribers, has also enabled us to consider fresh perspectives and new opportunities.

For the last six months, at ECO123, we have been engaged in an intense debate about new ways of presenting our articles in the future, contemplating forms that are immune to the virus and increasingly environmentally-friendly.

In the last few months, it has become almost impossible to print the ECO123 magazine in our customary fashion, since, for example, the factory has ceased its production of recycled paper. And these difficulties will continue in the future. Distributing the magazine on time is ever more problematical. Whether we post it or deliver it directly, it is increasingly difficult to get the magazine to our outlets at the kiosks, cafés, restaurants and hotels. We have to be more flexible. In May, we asked our readers how they thought ECO123 could best adapt to this new situation, while continuing to develop and improve.

We wanted to know whether our readers preferred a printed version or an online edition, as well as what type of online publications they favoured. We wanted to know what topics most aroused their interest and what price they were prepared to pay for the magazine. We addressed our questions to an audience of roughly 2000 regular readers and received 83 valid replies. The answers came from 45 subscribers who read in Portuguese, 10 who read in English and 28 in German. We admit that this is not a very representative sample, but it did help us to form an idea. And, although there has not been a printed edition for some time, the magazine has kept in regular contact with its readers online.

This is how we have been providing our publications for the last few months. During the lockdown period, we published a daily “short story”, seven days a week, on our website at www.eco123.info. The positive feedback that we received from our readers has motivated us to publish new online contents for ECO123 once a week, on Saturdays. We will be maintaining this format in the future.

Arriving on time for your breakfast, every Saturday, at 08:00 am, we will have a publication ready for you, and this will be accompanied by two full online editions of the magazine each year. From now on, we will continue to provide two printed editions per year (The Best of ECO123), one at the beginning of the summer and the other in November, before the winter sets in. Less paper and, therefore, fewer emissions.

If you would like to comment on these choices that we have made, please write to us at info@eco123.info. We value your opinion very highly.

Best wishes

Uwe Heitkamp (60)

trained TV journalist, book author and hobby botanist, father of two grown-up children, knows Portugal for 30 years, founder of ECO123.