Every individual, company and organisation must consider the role they have to play in combating the climate emergency.

As a publisher, our most important role is through the books we publish and their power to change minds and behaviour. We have a proud history of publishing vital and wide-ranging content in this space, from globally renowned thinkers like Naomi Klein and David Wallace-Wells , to books which help people make practical changes in everyday life. More recently we have established a dedicated environmental publishing imprint with David Attenborough, Witness Books.

Alongside our role as a publisher, it's also vital that we consider how we can innovate and improve to reduce the environmental impact of our own operations.

To reduce our own environmental impact, from forest to bookshop, we focus on three core priorities:

100% of the paper we use to make our books is Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC™) certified - the hallmark of excellence in sustainable paper sourcing. When forests are properly managed, harvesting timber can be an effective way of safeguarding forests for future generations. That’s important given that forests support up to 1.6 billion of some of the world’s poorest people, as well as countless plant and animal species. 

FSC™ is the only wood certification scheme endorsed by WWF, Greenpeace and the Woodland Trust. Certified forests must meet a range of best-in-class standards, ensuring harvested trees are replanted or allowed to regenerate naturally. FSC™ also safeguards forest biodiversity and local communities. 

Over the past few years we have reduced our direct carbon emissions by 65% since 2018. This includes switching to using 100% renewable energy in all our UK offices and warehouses.

However our most significant carbon footprint lies in our supply chain, in particular because of the energy intensive production process required to make paper in a paper mill. You can read a detailed breakdown of our carbon footprint here.

Over the coming years working in partnership with our suppliers with be critical to help us meet our global target to be climate netural by 2030.

In 2020 we put in place a new robust supplier management system and Sustainable Sourcing Policy. This enables us to work more effectively with our suppliers around the world to monitor their environmental and social impact and, crucially, to focus on continuous improvement. 

Within our own distribution operation in the UK we have also focused on innovating to reduce single-use plastic, eliminating nearly half of all plastics used to transport books from our warehouse to bookshops around the country. We've done this by moving to recycled (and recyclable) shredded cardboard to pad out boxes to prevent books from being damaged in transit.

Modern Slavery Statement 2019

Sustainable Sourcing Policy

Carbon Footprint 2019

Code of Conduct