PENGUIN BOOKS US GO GREEN IN A BIG WAY
"Penguin Group (USA) is proud to be partnered with The Nature Conservancy to Plant a Billion Trees. This will deepen our commitment to the environment by putting back some of the trees we use to create our books as well as creating a place for future generations to enjoy."
—Penguin Group Chairman and CEO John Makinson
Why Green Penguin
We at Penguin Group (USA) are aware of the importance of maintaining an attitude of stewardship toward the earth. We have a long history of publishing groundbreaking environmental works such as Rachel Carson's Under the Sea-Wind and John Muir's The Mountains of California. In 2008 we wi
ll continue this tradition of publishing books by writers who feel strongly about environmental issues and seek to show readers the way toward a better future.
Only 2% of the world's paper is turned into books. Even still, we make every effort to integrate our business practices into a framework that is respectful to the environment. We'd like to tell you what we at Penguin are doing to reduce our effects on the environment. As a well-known frog once said, it's not easy being green. But at Penguin we are doing our very best to make orange the new green.
—Penguin Group Chairman and CEO John Makinson
Why Green Penguin
We at Penguin Group (USA) are aware of the importance of maintaining an attitude of stewardship toward the earth. We have a long history of publishing groundbreaking environmental works such as Rachel Carson's Under the Sea-Wind and John Muir's The Mountains of California. In 2008 we wi
ll continue this tradition of publishing books by writers who feel strongly about environmental issues and seek to show readers the way toward a better future.
Only 2% of the world's paper is turned into books. Even still, we make every effort to integrate our business practices into a framework that is respectful to the environment. We'd like to tell you what we at Penguin are doing to reduce our effects on the environment. As a well-known frog once said, it's not easy being green. But at Penguin we are doing our very best to make orange the new green.
OUR BIG GOAL
We are working with our sister companies and our corporate parent, Pearson Inc, to becoming climate neutral by 2009.
We will achieve this goal by measuring and significantly reducing our energy use, seeking sustainable forms of energy, and off-setting our remaining carbon usage.
The Big Issue: Climate Change
Is the planet really warming up?Yes. The average surface air temperature on planet Earth has risen by almost one Centigrade in the last century and the evidence suggests that human activities are the dominant cause. Each year, the world's power stations, vehicles, homes and workplaces add around 26 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This greenhouse gas, along with other such as methane, absorbs heat that would otherwise pass into space, hence warming the planet.
So, it will get a little hotter. So what?Unfortunately, just a minor increase in global temperatures is likely to lead to catastrophic effects—not necessarily for all of us immediately—but everyone around the world will be in some way affected in the end.
Rising sea level, floods, droughts, heatwaves, powerful hurricanes... the symptoms of climate change threaten to displace millions of people from their homes, commit thousands of species to extinction and damage agriculture in the poorest countries. According to the World Health Organization, around 150,000 people already die each year from causes linked to climate change.
I've heard that trees reduce climate change. Do they?The link between trees and climate change is actually quite complicated, but one fact is unavoidable: cutting down existing forests without replanting them massively aggravates the problem. Around a quarter of global carbon emissions are accounted for by deforestation.
The information and figures come from The Rough Guide to Climate Change
What we can do to help
The process of making a book, like all manufacturing, leads to a carbon footprint—a measure of the amount of greenhouse emissions from any given activity.
So what creates a book's carbon footprint?In 2007 Penguin published, through its imprint The Penguin Press, Al Gore's The Assault on Reason. Let's follow the book through the publishing process.
1. Publishing begins with the receipt and editing of manuscripts and thus involves heating, lighting, paper, computers, telephones, air conditioning etc.—the kind of energy intensive equipment and processes that every modern office should be trying to tackle.
2. Trees are chopped down, debarked and pulped (these days many are grown explicitly for this purpose), then transported by road, rail or boat to the printer.
3. The printer creates the final book and transports copies to the publisher's warehouse, where the books are then distributed by road to bookshops across the US.
Each book's footprint is different, depending on factors such as whether the paper came from sustainably managed forests, whether the paper is glossy or matt, and whether any copies are flown or shipped to foreign countries.
But to give a rough idea, a 450-page paperback (such as Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner) will typically account for around 5.5 lb of carbon dioxide emissions per copy.
Over the course of a year there are nearly 300,000 titles published in the US. The sums speak for themselves.
If you'd like to know more, dip into the following books:
Penguin Group (USA) Green Titles
Listed by imprint...
Penguin
Assault on Reason by Al Gore (May 2008)
Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken (April 2008)
Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee (March 2008)
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (September 2007)
A Green History of the World by Clive Ponting (December 2007)
Collapse by Jared Diamond (September 2007)
Penguin Classics
The Mountains of California by John Muir (April 2008)
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiesen (Fall 2008)
Under the Sea Wind by Rachel Carson with an introduction by Linda Lear (April 2007)
Perigee
Green, Greener, Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-Smart Choices a Part of Your Life by Lori Bongiorno (March 25, 2008)
Live an Eco-Friendly Life (52 Brilliant Ideas): Smart Ways to Get Green and Stay That Way by Natalia Marshall (March 4, 2008)
Avery
Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World by Diane MacEachern (Feb 2008)
NAL
Green Babies, Sage Moms by Lynda Fassa (January 2008)
The Penguin Press
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (January 2008)
Riverhead
Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness: Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia by Erik Reece (February 2007)
Plume
Censoring Science by Mark Bowen (January 2008)
Green Living by the editors of E / The Environmental Magazine (June 2005)
Alpha
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Living (September 2007)
We will achieve this goal by measuring and significantly reducing our energy use, seeking sustainable forms of energy, and off-setting our remaining carbon usage.
The Big Issue: Climate Change
Is the planet really warming up?Yes. The average surface air temperature on planet Earth has risen by almost one Centigrade in the last century and the evidence suggests that human activities are the dominant cause. Each year, the world's power stations, vehicles, homes and workplaces add around 26 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This greenhouse gas, along with other such as methane, absorbs heat that would otherwise pass into space, hence warming the planet.
So, it will get a little hotter. So what?Unfortunately, just a minor increase in global temperatures is likely to lead to catastrophic effects—not necessarily for all of us immediately—but everyone around the world will be in some way affected in the end.
Rising sea level, floods, droughts, heatwaves, powerful hurricanes... the symptoms of climate change threaten to displace millions of people from their homes, commit thousands of species to extinction and damage agriculture in the poorest countries. According to the World Health Organization, around 150,000 people already die each year from causes linked to climate change.
I've heard that trees reduce climate change. Do they?The link between trees and climate change is actually quite complicated, but one fact is unavoidable: cutting down existing forests without replanting them massively aggravates the problem. Around a quarter of global carbon emissions are accounted for by deforestation.
The information and figures come from The Rough Guide to Climate Change
What we can do to help
The process of making a book, like all manufacturing, leads to a carbon footprint—a measure of the amount of greenhouse emissions from any given activity.
So what creates a book's carbon footprint?In 2007 Penguin published, through its imprint The Penguin Press, Al Gore's The Assault on Reason. Let's follow the book through the publishing process.
1. Publishing begins with the receipt and editing of manuscripts and thus involves heating, lighting, paper, computers, telephones, air conditioning etc.—the kind of energy intensive equipment and processes that every modern office should be trying to tackle.
2. Trees are chopped down, debarked and pulped (these days many are grown explicitly for this purpose), then transported by road, rail or boat to the printer.
3. The printer creates the final book and transports copies to the publisher's warehouse, where the books are then distributed by road to bookshops across the US.
Each book's footprint is different, depending on factors such as whether the paper came from sustainably managed forests, whether the paper is glossy or matt, and whether any copies are flown or shipped to foreign countries.
But to give a rough idea, a 450-page paperback (such as Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner) will typically account for around 5.5 lb of carbon dioxide emissions per copy.
Over the course of a year there are nearly 300,000 titles published in the US. The sums speak for themselves.
If you'd like to know more, dip into the following books:
Penguin Group (USA) Green Titles
Listed by imprint...
Penguin
Assault on Reason by Al Gore (May 2008)
Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken (April 2008)
Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee (March 2008)
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (September 2007)
A Green History of the World by Clive Ponting (December 2007)
Collapse by Jared Diamond (September 2007)
Penguin Classics
The Mountains of California by John Muir (April 2008)
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiesen (Fall 2008)
Under the Sea Wind by Rachel Carson with an introduction by Linda Lear (April 2007)
Perigee
Green, Greener, Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-Smart Choices a Part of Your Life by Lori Bongiorno (March 25, 2008)
Live an Eco-Friendly Life (52 Brilliant Ideas): Smart Ways to Get Green and Stay That Way by Natalia Marshall (March 4, 2008)
Avery
Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World by Diane MacEachern (Feb 2008)
NAL
Green Babies, Sage Moms by Lynda Fassa (January 2008)
The Penguin Press
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (January 2008)
Riverhead
Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness: Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia by Erik Reece (February 2007)
Plume
Censoring Science by Mark Bowen (January 2008)
Green Living by the editors of E / The Environmental Magazine (June 2005)
Alpha
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Living (September 2007)
To read the complete Penguin press release along with the full list of their green titles go here.
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