The State of Green Publishing

You have to admit that there's a bit of a "green" craze right now. It's trendy to be green, but it also could be business savvy, and obviously good for our planet. I'm currently researching how to take About Books, Inc. in a green direction, and came across this article about how the publishing industry is going green. http://www.foliomag.com/2010/state-green-publishing

Now, this article is mainly about periodicals and magazines, but it can directly effect the independent publisher: "...it’s publishers themselves who are the biggest stumbling block to making the switch to recycled paper and other green practices,
rather than readers or advertisers."

With more and more large publishers, periodicals, and magazines going green, we need to make sure we get on a green track too, or risk getting left behind.

I'll keep updates coming about my research, but until then, anyone have any thoughts?

Tags: green, paper, recycled, sustainable

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Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on November 30, 2010 at 7:10pm

Larkin,

There appears to be a movement within the industry to move towards greener practices:

"On Wednesday, November 10, 2010, at 1:00 PM Eastern Time 200 bloggers will take a stand to support books printed on environmental paper by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 such books. "

http://www.ecolibris.net/greenbookscampaign2010.asp

This appears to be an ongoing project each November. At this point, with only casual research, I was unable to find any information about 2011 book submissions. Nor did I find any statements what qualified a paper type as "enviormental".

Further research maybe necessary.

In that regard, here is more information on publishing's impact upon the environment. I encourage everyone interested to take a look at this as a resource, because the buying trends within the publishing industry are evolving and being "green" will probably continue to be one of them...

bradley flora
SPANnet.org

Permalink Reply by Larkin Flora on December 2, 2010 at 1:05pm

Thanks Bradley!

My new favorite green organization, after yesterday's research, is Canopy. This Canadian organization, started 10 years ago, is making a global impact by advocating for greener paper. Their biggest success so far? Working with JK Rowling to make the seventh Harry Potter book the greenest book in history.

SPAN members will probably find the attached resources from Canopy most useful, but for more information on them, visit them at canopyplanet.org.

~Larkin

Attachments:

book-ecokit_for_web_en.pdf, 1.4 MB
MI-AFFguide.pdf, 4.3 MB

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on January 24, 2011 at 3:59pm

Larkin,

Here's a brief article on Huffington post lamenting the death of trees for production of new books.

In many ways, the article is self serving, as the whole point seems to be, why publish a book when you can just post the content to the Internet?

I found the comments on this post to be most interesting, as many people commented in direct refutation of the above question.

Specifically, many people referenced Net Neutrality, and the potential unreliabilty of "the cloud", as reasons why sharing information via physical books is still a very good idea.

One of the most interesting things I read in the comments was the idea of using Kudzu or Industrial Hemp pulp to produce paper.

I'm not sure which one would be better today if both were legal, the commentator was not clear in that regard. Obviously Kudzu grows all over the south and is 100% legal to farm..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/24/books-dead-tree-test_n_812...

.bradley.

SPANnet.org

Permalink Reply by Larkin Flora on January 24, 2011 at 4:55pm

Thanks Bradley!

There was some good discussion going on there. My favorite posts included a link to this NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/04/opinion/04opchart.html

"All in all, the most ecologically virtuous way to read a book starts by walking to your local library."