Eco-Libris

Posted on May 9, 2014

Eco-Libris uses the motto “moving towards sustainable reading” and defines itself as a green company “working to green up the book industry”. Founded in 2007 and based in Brooklyn, Eco-Libris works with publishers, bookshops, non-profit organisations, authors and, particularly noteworthy, readers.

Eco-Libris is promoting green practices through a simple system of balancing out books by planting trees. This programme is open to anyone and its logic is very straightforward: for every book, one tree is planted. Those who want to get involved just have to donate according to the number of books they want to balance out. For instance, balancing out 5 books in 5 trees costs $5.00 USD.

Subsequently, for every tree planted, participants receive a sticker made from recycled paper, to put on the cover of the book that was balanced out in trees. A symbol of someone’s commitment to sustainability, the sticker is at the same time a mean to inspire others to do the same.

This green company has already balanced over 159,000 books in 169,000 trees, which were planted in developing countries of Central America and Africa with the support of three planting partners: the non-profit organisations Ripple Africa, based in the UK, and Sustainable Harvest International (SHI), and the Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR), headquartered in the USA.

Eco-Libris broad range of partners in the book industry include the self-publishing company Lulu, Little Green Books (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing), European publishers (Eli Publishing, in Italy, and Flux, in Norway) and bookshops in the US, UK and Ireland.

Personally, I consider that Eco-Libris stands out for its efforts to involve not only professionals but readers in sustainable initiatives, showing that they can actually play a role in the greener future of book production.

Image credit: Max Gladwell