Our Wishful List of Green Lit New Year's Resolutions (from Jeff Bezos to Oprah Winfrey)

This is the time of the year when people are thinking of their New year's resolutions, so we have couple of our own. This time, this is a wishful list of 7 "green" resolutions we hope to hear from important figures in the book industry.

We believe these resolutions will help the book industry to be not only more sustainable but also more prosperous!

Jeff Bezos (Amazon, CEO): Amazon will publish a full detailed report on the environmental impacts of the Kindle by June 2011. By 2012, we will make the Kindle the greenest e-reader!

Steve Jobs (Apple, CEO): Apple will reinforce its Supplier Code of Conduct on Foxconn, the manufacturer of the iPad. If Foxconn won't be able to commit to the code, Apple will stop using its services by the end of 2011.

Leonard Riggio (Barnes & Noble, Chairman): Barnes and Noble will follow Indigo and by June 2011 we will provide our customers information online and at the stores on books that are printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper.

Mike Edwards (Borders, CEO)*: We will come up with a new strategy that will transform our brick and mortar stores back into an asset and enable us to avoid bankruptcy.

Markus Dohle (Random House, Chairman and CEO): One of our planned biggest-selling nonfiction books for 2011 will be printed on paper containing at least 30 percent post-consumer content. Also, one of Stieg Larsson's books will be printed on FSC-certified paper in 2011.

Jonathan Franzen (Author): I will work with my publisher to make sure Freedom will be printed on 100% recycled paper in 2011, so if by any chance there's going to be another recall because of printing mistakes or any other problem, it will be at least a tree-free recall.

Oprah Winfrey: I will launch Oprah's Green Book Club in 2011, which will include only books printed on eco-friendly paper.

* If you wonder why this resolution entered our "green" list, the answer is very simple - for us, sustainability is not just about the environment, but also has economic, social and cultural layers and therefore the ability of a big book retailer to keep itself in business and thrive is for us not just an economic issue but also a sustainability issue.

If you have any other green lit resolutions for 2011 you wish to see please feel free to add them!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

A special green offer for readers of Oprah's Book Club new selection

I read yesterday on USA TODAY on Oprah Winfrey's book club new selection - The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. This is a great book and a great choice!

Eco-Libris believes that this 973-pages book should not be only a celebration of a great book and the joy of reading, but also an opportunity to discuss the urgent need in sustainable reading, which does not harm the environment. I read in the article that New American Library has printed 612,000 new "deluxe" Oprah editions. That's a lot of paper and a lot of trees that are cut down for this special edition.

Eco-Libris aims to raise the awareness to the environmental impacts of using paper for the production of books and for the need in printing books in an eco-friendly manner.

Therefore, we are having a special offer for all the eco-conscious readers out there that want to buy the new edition of the book:

If you buy the book and you want to help the environment, please send us an email to info@ecolibris.net with your address and the first sentence of Chapter 4 (just to show us you bought the book..). Eco-Libris will balance out the book for the first 50 people who email us with the right sentence.

It means that one tree will be planted by our planting partners to balance out the paper used for the book. And we will send you our sticker made of recycled paper saying “One tree planted for this book” you can later proudly display on the book's sleeve showing your commitment to the environment. And yes, we'll send it in an envelope made of recycled paper.

We truly hope to see Oprah's book club assist in promoting sustainable reading in the same way it helped with a great success to promote reading.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!