Leading NZ Publisher Achieves Environmental Benchmark

Achieving Gold-level accreditation with the highly respected environmental scheme Enviromark is the latest milestone as Random House New Zealand fine tunes its business to be more environmentally friendly.

At a ceremony held in Auckland last night, Random House New Zealand was officially awarded a Gold Enviromark certificate. The company was also presented with a baby cabbage tree, which, when it grows a bit bigger, will be planted on the grass verge outside Random House New Zealand’s offices in the Wairau Valley of Auckland’s North Shore.
On receiving the award Random House New Zealand Publishing Director Nicola Legat said "being there cemented for me how valuable it is that we all continue to recycle, compost our food waste, turn off the air cons and our computer monitors, continue to rationalise freight movements from the warehouse and all the other things we are doing as part of our environmental programme."

Random House New Zealand has been actively recycling for many years and its latest initiatives involve a full in-house office recycling scheme, the removal of food from the waste stream and its direction to an on-site compost bin and vegetable garden; consolidation of dispatch orders from the warehouse to reduce carbon emissions, and the drive to reduce energy use on site.

"The publishing industry, as a large consumer of paper and packaging and mover of freight, is a key player in sustainability," says Random House New Zealand Managing Director Karen Ferns. "Worldwide, the Random House group of companies are driving programmes to reduce waste and energy consumption and we see our Gold accreditation, which is specifically developed for the New Zealand situation, as part of that greater global sense of mission. I am delighted that we are the first New Zealand publishing company to achieve this well considered accreditation."