By Brian O'Leary
Interest in—and awareness of—the need for more sustainable practices is growing in the United States. Although other markets, including the United Kingdom and the European Union, are more advanced in their consideration of sustainability goals, the global nature of many businesses means that international trends are affecting US organizations as well.
Various companies and nonprofit organizations have started sustainability efforts. Some are well established, dating to the mid-2000s. At the same time, overall knowledge of the basic components of sustainability—the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), carbon footprints, and scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions, as examples—is limited in the US book industry. More can be done to build awareness, educate, and foster action around sustainability in the US market.
At the moment, the North American market is challenged to make sense of what is happening globally with respect to sustainability. There is a lot of data and not enough actionable information related to reporting requirements, deadlines, and expectations for progress against multiple sustainability targets. At BISG, we’re trying to help the industry develop that information. Overall, our sustainability working group has six ongoing objectives:
Identify and address opportunities to create more uniform (standard) approaches to collecting and reporting data related to sustainability efforts
Coordinate with other US and international sustainability efforts, building relationships within the group and across organizations
Share information about work done to define and establish goals around sustainability
Link available resources, like the SDGs, to book publishing supply chain activities, advising US organizations on current and emerging requirements. Consider resources like the Publishers Compact as a way to engage companies and individuals.
Propose industry goals around critical metrics, such as CO2 equivalents
Collect data that informs the industry about progress and opportunities relative to SDGs and other measures of sustainability
In 2025, we are focused on three near-term goals whose results will help interested organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere strengthen their approaches to sustainability. These goals include:
Developing and implementing a one-year plan that demonstrates how a carbon calculation model can be adopted within an organization
Delivering a business case for carbon data collection
Collaborating with the BISG Supply Chain Committee and the Green Book Alliance for in-person opportunities to educate the industry around sustainability issues and opportunities at industry events (London Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, BISG and BMI’s annual meetings, etc.)
The work to demonstrate how a carbon calculation model can be adopted within an organization is already underway. At its 2025 kickoff meeting in early February, BISG’s sustainability working group began a year-long “live testing” project to choose a carbon model, acquire the data needed to populate it for a set of publishing decisions, and then report on both what it found and areas where it might be struggling. We’ll take the lessons learned in 2025 and share them widely, so that other companies and organizations can learn from our successes (and from our mistakes!)
The business case for carbon data collection is still on the drawing board, with the goal of answering the perennial question: “Why should I do this?” We know there’s a need to move past the argument that “it’s the right thing to do”, offering concrete benefits that justify investments in carbon data collection. The live testing project will help us find some of those benefits.
Work is already underway to contribute to the Green Book Alliance, whose principals meet every other Monday to compare notes and plan projects. GBA recently participated in HP’s ConTEXT event on March 10, just ahead of the London Book Fair, and we’re already discussing the content of our Frankfurt sustainability event. Look for announcement on those and other initiatives, and sign up for our mailing list if you’re not already on it.
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