The Yellow Pages are going green, but how about eliminating the wasteful printing in the first place?

Last week on Earth Day, the Yellow Pages Association (YPA) released its first sustainability report. It included updates on their progress including the news that:

"Yellow Pages publishers use directory paper that contains recycled content. In addition to recycled paper pulp, this type of paper contains fiber primarily derived from “residual chips,” a by-product of sawmills left after logs are converted to lumber. That is, the chips become paper pulp instead of going into landfills or being burned. It is not necessary to use new trees to produce Yellow Pages."

This is good news, but my question is: Do we really need to print about 130 million Yellow Pages every year?

Just think about it - how many of you really use these printed directories? I guess the number is shrinking every year, especially when all the information is available online on their website. But at the same time the wasteful practice of delivering everyone new copies every year is still going on. It's true that now you can opt-out if you want to, but doesn't it make more sense to make it an opt-in process instead of opt-out?

It makes perfectly sense from both a consumer and environmental point of view - give the directories just to those people who really want them and who will actually use them. The only one that might not see it as a win-win solution are the Yellow Pages Publishers as a smaller circulation means smaller revenues from ads.

In their sustainability report, Neg Norton, president of YPA says:

"Yellow Pages print directories remain a key part of our business and a widely used tool to connect buyers and sellers. In fact, in 2009 alone, print Yellow Pages received 12 billion references. As long as consumers continue to use print directories and our clients see value being represented in them, we will continue to offer that service – but we must be committed to doing so responsibly and with high regard for the communities in which we live and work."

I can understand that the directories are valued and used by people, but again, why give so many of them to others who don't need them? and why do it every year? But, Neg (if I may), if you're really committed to do it responsibly, then you should shift to an opt-in process. Otherwise, no matter how hard you would work to improve the current opt-out unsustainable practice, you will fail to meet your commitment to make the yellow pages green.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Kudos to Wiley for their first annual corporate citizens report, but where are the figures?

Publisher John Wiley & Sons released last week its first annual Corporate Citizenship Report to share the progress of its global Corporate Citizenship initiative, which was introduced in 2008, and establish goals for the coming year.

As their press release mentions, Wiley launched this global initiative to address its key social, economic, ethical, and environmental challenges; formalize and globalize its policies and strategies; improve its communications; and become more proactive addressing its carbon footprint and supply chain matters.

This is a very impressive initiative and the report itself is also an achievement in itself, as such report is very rare in the publishing industry. So first and foremost I think Wiley deserves big kudos for their efforts to become more sustainable and for this report. Nevertheless, one thing was missing in this report: figures.

Here's one example: paper. The report is very clear about it:

"Wiley uses paper sourced from mills around the globe and recognizes our responsibility to select papers that meet the highest standards of sustainable, clean, and efficient production.

In 2008-2009, Wiley established global guidelines for environmentally favorable paper sourcing and procurement strategies based on generally accepted best practices, with guidance from stakeholders, industry trade associations, and third-party certifiers. Moving forward, Wiley will adopt locally tailored programs that apply these global principles, guide decision making, and facilitate external communication."

What was achieved in 2009? The report explains that Wiley did the following:

- Formalized global Responsible Paper Sourcing guidelines.

- Reduced paper consumption by adopting lighter weight papers and reducing waste, migrating more print subscriptions to online license deals, and taking advantage of digital technologies to deliver content online as well as more efficiently in print.

What are the goals for 2010? The report gives the details :

- Support paper choices by leveraging resources such as PREPS (Publishers Database for Responsible Environmental Paper Sourcing) and EPAT (Environmental Paper Assessment Tools).

- Reduce paper use and shipping through new print technologies such as Print On Demand and Ultra Short Run.

As you can see Wiley takes the issue of paper very seriously, but were are the numbers? when Wiley says it reduced paper consumption in 2009 - is it a 10% reduction, 25% reduction or maybe 2% reduction? I mean, there's no real way to value these steps when they're put in such a vague way.

And it's not just the part about paper. I also couldn't find on the other parts of the report figures describing either a 2009 achievement or a 2010 goal, except with ethical conduct goals (such as monitoring vendor performance by making annual visits to at least 75% of our major vendors).

Wiley mentions in the report that "This is a long-term initiative, with the full support of our leadership team. It may take years to reach some of our ultimate goals, but we intend to achieve measurable improvement from year to year. For information on our initiative and our progress, please visit www.wiley.com/go/citizenship." I was hoping that maybe the missing figures can be found there, but unfortunately I found none.

Just for comparison let's look at another company from the publishing industry, although this time it's mainly magazines - Time Inc. If you look at their 2007-2008 sustainability report you'll see it's full with figures that let you a good understanding of their efforts and can also assist you to benchmark them against other companies' sustainability efforts. Here's just one example:

After considering what would be both ambitious and practical, Time became the first U.S. publisher to set targets for producing less greenhouse gas throughout its supply chains. Time asked the paper companies to reduce carbon emissions 20% from a 2004 base by the year 2012. Some suppliers pointed out that they had already achieved some reductions before 2004 and felt they deserved credit for their leadership role. To accommodate these suppliers, Time set some alternative but equally challenging goals. Keeping the same target year of 2012, the paper companies have the options of cutting carbon output by 25% from a 2000 base or 30% from a 1996 base.

As I said earlier I still believe Wiley deserves kudos for their efforts and I hope the second report will include all the figures that are so missing here. Nevertheless, I think that this report could do a much better job with figures to help us seeing Wiley's deep commitment to sustainability.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green reading!