Officially Green
FSC – Forest Stewardship Council
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a worldwide, non-governmental, non-profit organisation established in 1993 to promote responsible management of world’s forests. Its mission is to ensure a lawful, profitable and reasonable management, “environmentally sound, socially beneficial and economically prosperous”.
FSC assesses whether those in charge for forest management are complying with law, international protocols, and if they are enhancing, while still respecting, the life of surrounding communities. As such, FSC works in conjunction with professionals from a wide range of industries who use wood as a raw material, mainly forest owners, members of timber and printing industries and publishers.
In order to ensure a better and more responsible management of our forests, the organisation implemented a system of certifications:
1. Forest Management
2. Controlled Wood
3. Chain of Custody
1. The Forest Management certification “is awarded to forest managers or owners whose management practices meet the requirements of the FSC Principles and Criteria”;
2. The Controlled Wood certification allows manufacturers to mix FSC certified material with uncertified materials (for example, illegally harvested wood or wood harvested in violation of traditional and civil rights), always under controlled and previously accepted conditions;
3. Finally, the Chain of Custody Certification (FCS CoC) is applied to manufacturers, processors and traders of FSC certified forest products. This certificate is used to certify any product made according to the FSC standards.
The FSC CoC allows companies to label and track the timber or other wood products derived from FSC certified forests, and monitor them through the whole process of production, from forests to consumers. In the market, FSC certified products are identified with a seal, which we may find today in a variety of wood-made products, including books. In books, the seal is usually printed on back covers or copyright pages, and it is widely taken as a trustworthy symbol.
Publishers are increasingly committed to FSC standards. Most publishing houses are now using FSC or other type of certified paper. For example, Penguin has printed all its b&w books on FSC certified paper since 2008, and HarperCollins, in 2013, set a goal that 70% of the books printed by Harper UK would be FSC certified.
As consumers, with an FSC certified book, we get the chance to support an ecological cause and to trace back the origins of our books. At least, to find out from which type of wood they were made of. Pick a book, type an FSC code and check, here.
Image credit: Capella
PEFC – Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), like FSC, is an international non-profit, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting sustainable forest management through third party certification.
Founded in 1999, PEFC is the world’s largest forest certification organisation, with a forest certificated area of 258 million ha (two-thirds of the globally certified forest area) and 15,804 companies certified with its Chain of Custody.
Particularly aimed at small forest owners and producers, PEFC provides a guarantee that wood, timber and paper products come from forests sustainably managed. As FSC, PEFC also has a tracking system to control the integrity of certified products throughout the production chain.
In 2014, it is hard to find a publisher that does not use a certified type of paper, like PEFC endorsed paper. Even small publishers, like the Cambridge based Open Book Publishers, are committed to green policies. Open Book Publishers is an open access, non-profit academic book publisher, with no institutional backing. It was founded in 2008 and, nonetheless, is already using acid free paper, PEFC and SFI certified paper. In addition, all its paper used for jackets is manufactured using electricity generated by renewable wind power. In brief, not only a good example of the wide extent of the PEFC certification programme, but also of the environmental awareness across the publishing industry.
Image credit: Eniro Group
SFI – Sustainable Forestry Initiative
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is an independent, non-profit organisation that certifies forests and lands in the USA and Canada. Launched in 1994 by the American Forest and Paper Association, it is internationally recognised and endorsed by PEFC.
Like FSC and PEFC, SFI promotes responsible forest management, issuing CoC certifications. Similarly to others councils, their certified products are properly labelled.
Even if specialised in American forestry, SFI got my attention for the impact of its program SFI Forest Partners, which has the cooperation of two renowned and influential groups in the publishing industry: Macmillan Publishers and Pearson. Please read more here.
Image credit: Lydony
Green Press Initiative
Founded in 2001, the non-profit organisation Green Press Initiative was created to boost the implementation of sustainable patterns of production and consumption in the US book and newspaper publishing. Green Press Initiative’s concerns are more than exclusively forestry and paper related, working GPI closely with publishing stakeholders in order to, for example, preserve endangered species and minimise the book production impacts on native indigenous communities.
I decided to include GPI on my collection of green organisations for another main reason. Green Press Initiative provides a set of Tools and Resources for book and newspaper publishers, printers and paper mills who want to reduce their ecological footprint and environmental impact, being this information freely available on their website. Specifically for professionals in the book industry, GPI offers guidance on how to apply ecological measures and the following resources:
- A toolkit for publishers, printers, paper manufacturers and authors, with guidelines on the implementation of environmental policies and FSC certifications
- A suppliers lists, with contacts of suppliers using recycled and certified paper
- A set of articles, reports and case studies about the ecological impact of print and digital manufacturing in book production (as this one about the environmental impacts of ebooks)
GPI was also responsible for the Book Industry Treatise on Environmentally Responsible Publishing, which has already been signed by more than 250 publishers. A particularly interesting organisation, GPI is a fund grant program, but highly committed to both big and small houses. An example of that is the green publishing toolkit that the organisation developed for small publishers, in specific.
Interview with the Founder and Director of Green Press Initiative
Image credit: Georgetown University Press
PREPS – Publishers’ Database for Responsible Environmental Paper Sourcing
PREPS is a joint initiative of 23 publishers from all around the world. It was established in 2006 to provide to its members a better understanding of papers resources and responsible paper practices. Its current members are:
- Cambridge University Press
- Cappelen Damm
- Chronicle Books
- Egmont UK
- Hachette UK
- HarperCollins
- Imago
- Laurence King
- Macmillan
- McGraw-Hill Education
- Meld
- Oxford University Press
- Parragon
- Pearson Education
- Penguin Group UK
- Random House
- Reed Elsevier
- Sage Publications
- Scholastic
- Simon & Schuster
- Usborne Books
- Walker Books
- Wiley
The group is an evolution of an idea initially developed by Egmont UK, who created in 2003 a Grading System now known as the PREPS Grading System. Drawn by the project, 10 publishers then launched PREPS in 2006: Egmont, Imago, Walker, Usborne Books, Hachette, Pearson, Reed Elsevier, Penguin, Sage and HarperCollins.
The group developed a database with technical specification of the woods, wood fibre, pulps and respective forest sources of the papers used by each one of them, as well as data on the CO2 emissions and water consumption of the paper mills with whom they work.
The PREPS Grading System is based on this information and is provided by paper mills. Every time that one of the 23 members wants to use a new type of paper, a request is sent to PREPS Secretariat (run by a management consultancy specialised in Corporate Responsibility), that then asks for information about the paper to the corresponding mill. The information returns, being added to PREPS database and graded according to the PREPS Grading System, on a range from 1 to 5 stars. Usually the paper is awarded as 1, 3 of 5, meaning:
Grade 1: Paper containing unknown or undesirable forest sources
Grade 3: Paper where all the forest sources are known, legal, low risk or either FSC or PEFC accredited
Grade 5: Paper which is FSC or 100% PEFC accredited or 100% PCW
PREPS also organises meetings and seminars, keeping the dialogue between publishers and paper manufacturers up to date. In 2012, PREPS access was additionally extended to printers. I believe this is an expression of a general willingness in book publishing, and specifically of these 23 publishing houses, to work closer with suppliers, so that more sustainable, green-certified products, can be provided to book buyers around the world.
Images credit: PREPS
PGN – Publishers Green Network
The Publishers Green Network is a voluntary, non-profit organisation formed by members of the publishing industry based in the UK. It was founded in 2007 by members of Pearson, Alastair Sawday Publishing and Hachette to promote environmental awareness at grass-roots level, providing help on green practices and ecological initiatives to “any executives involved in environmental initiatives within their publishing houses”.
The group is open to anyone, regardless the position, role or department, and its initiatives are aimed to all UK publishing houses, from the largest groups to the most independent publishers. At the moment, 30 publishing houses are involved in the network. Meetings are held twice a year on a wide range of matters: energy reduction initiatives, environmental staff engagement, supply chain integrity, waste management and the impact of digitisation, juts to mention some of a broader list.
Certainly, a good initiative to keep professionals, from all areas of publishing, informed about greener trends in book production.
Image credit: Facebook Publishers Green Network
Publishing gets green 