Piers Torday

Publishing is currently not a sustainable business, mainly because we chop down trees to print books. For every 25 books printed on virgin paper (including paper certified as “FSC” by the Forestry Stewardship Council), approximately one tree is felled to produce the paper required. Paper accounts for an astonishing 90–95% of many major publishers’ carbon emissions.

Further significant emissions are caused by distribution and waste. Books are printed in China and the Middle East, and shipped to warehouses in the UK, and then distributed onto consumers via wholesalers or retailers. This all requires energy usage and packaging, much of which still involves single use plastic. Books ordered by retailers but not sold, are often returned to the publisher, and many are pulped, which uses yet more energy. Books can be recycled, but if they have foil on their covers, or coated paper, this can make the recycled pulp less reusable.

For all that, every book printed has the potential to be a super-sustainable product. A book bought and retained by a customer and their descendants could last a hundred years or more, and be read many times over. And the world will always need, and is perhaps now in urgent need, of new stories and ideas. It is hard to argue from a purely environmental perspective, however, that the world needs any more physical books to add to the mountain that already exists. Yet still, a whole industry requires continued growth of the physical book market, from agents to booksellers, publishers to distributors.

Authors face a conundrum. For many of us, the advances against royalties, foreign rights, and subsidiary rights sales from physical books form either the bulk or a central plank of our income. E-books and audio books are significant in certain genres but do not yet offer a comparative financial return for most writers. Physical book sales mean that pandemics excepted) writers are invited to bookshops, libraries, and festivals – another source of income – to promote those books and take part in broader cultural conversations.

But when we write about environmental themes, campaign on green issues, and make attempts to reduce carbon emissions in our own professional lives – whether taking trains to festivals, rather than flying, or declining free plastic bottles of water – how can we square the values we espouse on the page with the value of that page? How can we justify the carbon it has cost us all?

Making pledges

Last summer, many authors were alarmed by the stark conclusions of the latest IPCC report. Humanity stands on the threshold of catastrophic, irreversible climate change. There is an ever-shrinking envelope of time for the world to collectively collaborate and take decisive systemic action to stop global temperatures rising above 1.5°C.

About a hundred climate concerned authors and illustrators, including Cressida Cowell and Dara McAnulty, wrote an open letter to the British publishing industry, calling for UK publishers to sign up to the UN-backed Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), and make a commitment to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

I’m pleased that the response was overwhelmingly positive and constructive. Some major publishers – including my own, Hachette – have now signed up to the SBTI initiative, and the Publisher’s Association (PA) has created the Publishing Declares Pledge (www.publishingdeclares.com), committing to net zero by 2050; there are 82 corporate signatories at the time of writing. BIC, the book supply-chain industry body, has established the Green Book Alliance, and the Independent Publisher’s Guild (IPG) has a project looking at different book life journeys, and is preparing a toolkit to help smaller publishers make their work sustainable.

Authors must be part of these actions, which is why I established the Authors and Illustrators Sustainability Working Group, under the aegis of the SoA. This network aims to represent the views of writers and illustrators (with representation from other groups such as ALCS, the Association of Illustrators and Writers Rebel in formal dialogue with the publishing industry.

We have held talks with individual publishers, the PA, IPG and BIC, raising our concerns. The good news is that multiple conversations around every aspect of publishing that has an environmental impact, from paper sourcing to the used book market, are now – we hope - being streamlined into one central sustainability industry forum at which authors, publishers, suppliers and booksellers all have representation. And representation we must have, because the changes that are coming - from a streamlined supply chain to more sustainably printed books - will all have both a cost and an impact on how publishing works as a business. We need to be part of that conversation, to protect our livelihoods as well as the planet.

Wibalin and greyboard – a case study

This mission took on a personal significance with the publication of my latest children’s book, The Wild Before. A prequel to a trilogy I wrote a few years back, the story has an environmental message at its heart. I offered my publisher, Quercus Children’s (part of Hachette Children’s Group) the creative and production challenges of producing a book that would match the green and sustainable values of the story.

The challenges were multiple. For example, you can print on uncoated recycled paper, but unless a varnish is used to seal in the inks, they can rub off. While varnish doesn’t contain plastic, it does contain chemicals which affect the biodegradability of the book.

The story of the Wild Before hardback is a case study of the many and complex interlinked challenges of making publishing a sustainable business, from raw materials right along the supply chain to the finished product. HCG’s primary challenge was to create a sustainable children’s hardback that would also stand out against competitors without the usual “bells and whistles” of laminates, varnishes and foils, which are often used to complement the cover design and make it eye-catching in stores. “Without being able to exploit these benefits, we had to maximise the impact of the artwork and design. That meant from its inception utilising colour, contrast and a clean visual language,” HCG said.

One advantage of the uncoated jacket paper was that HCG found “the texture gives the instant tactile clue that this book does not use that plastic finish of a matt or gloss lamination.”

And in fact, contrary to the fear some designers and marketing or sales directors may have, the instant values of the book, alongside the strength of the beautiful cover visual, led to prominent placement in Waterstones and independents. Sustainable does not mean unsellable!

But the battle to make the book sustainable did not stop at the cover. As well as being sealant-, plastic- and foil-free, The Wild Before was printed on FSC paper with a recycled dust jacket and recycled Wibalin (the material hardcover book-cases are made from).

A sustainable cover feels like a symbolic step forward for commercial publishing, especially in the foil-obsessed children’s market. But don’t judge a sustainable book by its cover alone. The entire volume was sealant and plastic free, including packaging, which in turn raised a further problem to overcome. Damage.

HCG reported that their “biggest challenge was to ensure the book wasn’t going to be easily damaged during the production process or the various stages of transport before reaching readers.”

They conducted a trial run at the printers (Clays, who were collaborative and supportive), “to test whether the jacket and case sheets would mark, scuff or become damaged when running through the printing and casing.” The book was offered further robustness by a “spine width of 21.5mm, with additional support from the hardback greyboard case.” (Greyboard is a stiff stock paper board product used for making hardback books)

The end result is beautiful and long lasting, and has won acclaim for its sustainability on social media. But if you think every book is going to be published like this tomorrow, think again. Like all the big four publishers, Hachette are committed to “produce books more sustainably” but adds “it is not clear that the specific production values of this book, namely removing the finishes, will be the creative direction for every book, by every author.” A simple example would be that photographs or high-resolution illustrations reproduced on uncoated paper will currently look poor quality and lower-definition compared to those on coated paper.

The direction of travel is clear. What is less clear is whether we will reach our destination on time. Our major publishers, distributors and printers are committed to net-zero carbon emissions by the distant date of 2050, when nearly all the people who are making the pledges now will either no longer be in post or even on the earth.

Yet the climate emergency is not a distant threat but a present danger - we can see the challenges of extreme weather events, rising temperatures, resource shortages and energy consumption around us every day.

The speed of the race will be in part driven by the market. As Hachette acknowledges: “More and more printers and mills are signing up to green initiatives. Supply and demand will drive change as more calls are made for green credentials and carbon data from manufacturing processes.”

The rate of that supply and demand is hard for authors to influence directly, no more than we can global supply-chain issues and rising costs. But where we can make an impact is by using our voices and platforms to advocate for change. Of the millions of books printed each year, how many need to be printed on virgin, tree-swallowing paper covered in chemicals? How can we encourage designers, retailers, and consumers to embrace less shiny but more durable products? Is it time that authors and publishers learned to love the used market, and campaigned for authors to have a right to receive greater royalties from it? There are conversations about whether the volume of books returned that end in landfill is remotely acceptable or sustainable and whether the largely academic model of print-on-demand might work better for certain mass-market titles.

Yes, the challenge is unbelievably complex. A book printed in China at a modern plant using only renewable energy that is then shipped to the UK might ultimately produce less carbon than one printed closer to home but at an older plant using non-renewable energy. Recycled paper is more sustainable in theory than new FSC paper, but in practice it can also be problematic tracing whether the pulp used came from sustainable sources in the first place. Publishers cannot control the carbon emissions of every single raw material supplier. The scale and diversity of publishing means that there is no grand single solution; hundreds of complex adjustments, savings, efficiencies and improvements must be made.

You may feel as an author that where the paper for your books comes from, or how they are transported, or even what energy supplier your printer uses, is beyond your competence or above your pay grade. But the outcome of these conversations will have an impact on everything from the sustainability of your income to the sustainability of the planet

I urge you to inform yourself and get involved. Talk to your publisher about how they are working to make your future books more sustainable. Promote sustainable publishing in encounters with retailers, and at events and festivals. And if you want to be directly part of the conversation with other industry stakeholders, our inbox at the Society of Authors is always open.

Piers Torday’s books include The Last Wild trilogy (Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize) and The Lost Magician (Teach Primary Book Award). His latest book is The Wild Before. Plays include The Box of Delights and Christmas Carol (Wilton’s Music Hall.) He is Chair of the Society of Authors Sustainability Working Group. He would like to thank the editorial, publicity, design and production departments at Hachette for their assistance with this article.

Piers Torday

Publishing a Sustainable Book