Simon & Schuster
Eco-Libris
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
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
Publishing gets green 