As promised yesterday, we're starting today to present you with some of the publishers that participate in the Green Books Campaign and their thoughts on why it's important that books will be printed in an eco-friendly manner. Our first guest is FIELL Publishing from the UK.First, let's get to know the publisher a little bit better:
FIELL publishes beautiful, unique, authoritatively written, high-quality illustrated books that embrace the most interesting, important and pertinent subjects within an enticing rage of disciplines - art, architecture, design, digital culture, ethical, fashion, lifestyle, natural history, photography and popular culture.
Peter and Charlotte Fiell have worked in illustrated book publishing for 20 years, and recently founded FIELL with the aim of making content-rich books that inform, entertain and entrance. Books that inspire and help those who aspire to lead better lives, to understand other cultures, to understand themselves, to contribute more to the world.
FIELL is participating in the campaign with the following books:
The Little Book of Shocking Global Facts’ by Barnbrook (in addition to being printed on FSC approved paper, 1% of the profit from this book is being donated to the Rainforest Alliance). The book will be reviewed on Green Design & Other Ideas. 
The Little Book of Shocking Food Facts by Craig Holden Feinberg & Dale Petersen (printed on FSC-certified paper). The book will be reviewed on Victoria Klein's blog.
The Little Book of Shocking Eco Facts by Barnbrook, Mark Crundwell & Cameron Dunn (printed on FSC-certified paper). The book will be reviewed on Business Women Blogging, with opinions.And now to the questionnaire (all publishers were asked to reply the same four questions):
Why do you believe books should be printed on eco-friendly paper?
We at FIELL are very conscious of eco-friendly and sustainable design – Peter and Charlotte have been writing about sustainable design for years, and now with their own publishing house they aim to highlight and support environmentally friendly and ethical design, and one of the best ways for us to do that is for us to use high quality, eco-friendly paper and processes – it isn’t just important to use eco-friendly paper, what you print onto it is just as important.
We want our books to be something to buy to keep, not to just throw away because it’s only relevant for five minutes, or because it doesn’t feel special or considered. Our series of ‘Little Books of Shocking Facts’ have been real eye-openers for us, and we hope for our readers too – it is about time that we considered our use of materials more seriously and it’s time we take responsibility for what we produce and how we produce it.
What is your policy on using eco-friendly paper?
We use paper from sustainable sources in all our publications. Many people think of the future as being in digital books, because of the issue of the sustainability of printed mediums – one way of keeping printed books alive is to make sure that when readers are buying them they can reassure themselves that they are making an environmentally friendly choice, and we know that we are doing our best to make publishing a sustainable industry – we also see a future of an emphasis on these digital book platforms, and during the production and editing of our books we are constantly thinking of their transferability to digital formats.
Are there other ways you're going green?
The whole concept of something being ‘well-designed’ is that you only have to buy it once. In drawing people’s attention to these designs, to true masterpieces of design, architecture, fashion, and photography, we are encouraging people to think before they buy. It’s what Dieter Rams said: Less but better. We’ve drawn a lot of attention to this idea with our book ‘Tools for Living’, which is a book of ultimate products for the home; the ultimate potato peeler, the ultimate clock, the ultimate set of knives. The idea that you can buy one of these items once and it will last you a lifetime not just because it looks good but because it really works: that drives us.
What's your advice to readers that would like to make their book purchasing more sustainable?
If you really want to make a difference in the way that you buy books, or products of any kind, is to ask yourself, is it necessary? Is this the best book I can buy on this subject? Again it’s the idea of buying once and buying the best.
Thank you FIELL for your work and your participation in the Green Books Campaign!
The Campaign's page is http://www.ecolibris.net/greenbookscampaign2010.asp .You can also follow the campaign on Facebook and twitter.
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!
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