By Raz Godelnik •
September 10, 2008
This post was originally published on Saturday, September 6, 2008.
Until lately we were quoting the figure of 20 million trees as the common estimate for the number of trees cut down annually for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone. Not any more. And unfortunately, the update is not positive. We’re updating this figure to (approximately) 30 million trees.
The base for the new estimate is the report ‘Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry,’ prepared by The Green Press Initiative and The Book Industry Study Group. This is probably the most important report that was published recently on the environmental impacts of the book publishing industry.
According to the report the amount of paper consumed annually for books in the U.S. is 1.6 million metric tons (2006 figures). To convert it into trees figure, we will multiply it in 20, as the figures usually used are in the range of 17-24. So the total we get is about 32 million trees, and if we round it - about 30 million trees.
Editor’s note: This week, Raz Godelnik at Eco-Libris takes a look at a new study of the book publishing industry’s environmental footprint. As gathering information is the first step towards making change, we hope this report provides the data necessary for this industry to continue moving in greener directions. This post was originally published on Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
This is a very exciting week for the book industry and anyone involved in the efforts to green it up. The reason? Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts:Findings from the U.S. Book Industry has been published.
This 86-page report was prepared by The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and The Green Press Initiative (GPI) (with support from a number of industry sponsors). Seventy-six publishers, representing just under half of the market, participated in the study, along with 13 printers (about 25 percent) and 6 paper mills (about 17 percent).
Why is this report so important? Because this is an up to date analysis of the industry’s ecological footprint. This is the most detailed survey someone has done in years to create a clear picture of the book publishing industry’s environmental impacts.
These measurements will help not only to know better where the industry is standing now, but also to better plan how to move forward and green up the industry as well as to evaluate the progress later on. In one word: benchmark. Or as BISG describes the report on its website: “a benchmarking survey which will establish a baseline for tracking climate impacts and progress by the U.S. book industry in environmental improvements.”
