Sustainability in publishing

Picture of Teddy McDonald

Teddy McDonald

Teddy works on SoA communications and outreach and alongside the Policy department on the SoA's campaigns work. He is also co-coordinator of the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group (CWIG).
Sign up to our sustainability mailing list to receive more information about our work in this area and our upcoming campaign, Tree to Me.

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The issue of sustainability can sometimes feel overwhelming for authors. From deforestation to create paper, to book pulping, transportation, water usage and the use of foils and toxic inks (to name a few), publishing has a particularly harmful environmental impact. But this doesn’t have to be the case.

Tree to Me helps authors raise questions with publishers about their book(s)’ sustainability and empowers publishers and authors to work together to improve sustainability and communicate to readers, so that readers can make sustainable book purchases. We hope to launch the campaign in the spring.

We are already signatories to Publishing Declares and invite you to sign up too.

In 2021, we helped found the Sustainability Industry Forum, a space for organisations across publishing to provide updates on individual sustainability projects, to see where action can be coordinated or duplication of efforts can be avoided, in the interests of achieving a more sustainable publishing industry, in line with the goals of Publishing Declares. Its members are the Society of Authors, the Association of Authors’ Agents, Book Industry Communications, the Booksellers Association, the Independent Publishers Guild and the Publishers Association.

As we all continue to think about sustainability more and more, we are looking forward to sharing more information about Tree to Me and our other work in this area.

10 December 2024

The Forum of seven leading trade associations reflects on its first two years – and strategises for the future

30 September 2024

A year after the launch of our campaign Tree to Me, we met with authors to hear about their experiences discussing their books’ sustainability with their publishers

2 May 2024

On 2 May 2024, SoA Members voted on three Resolutions at an Extraordinary General Meeting