by Lasell Whipple
"Environmental publishing is about basic supply and demand. As publishers, we can have a huge say. The publishing community needs to galvanize-suppliers listen to consumer demand," said Susan Ristow, Director of Design and Production at Sierra Club Books. So began a compelling discussion with Ristow and Deborah Bruner, Director of Production at Cornell University Press (former Senior Manufacturing Manager at Jossey-Bass Publishers), who came to speak about "walking the talk" of environmentally responsible publishing at the Bookbuilders West seminar on August 6, 1996.
Does It Really Matter?
As Ristow readily acknowledged, most of us in publishing are in crisis management much of the time and may not always have the time it takes to gather information about the environmental impact of our industry. But the fact is we can't afford not to. The informative packet of handouts chockful of mind-boggling facts made this alarmingly clear. Consider that 40 to 50 percent of trees harvested in the U.S. end up as paper, and that paper is the eighth largest industry in the country but the third largest polluter. Consider that petroleum-based ink releases volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that contribute to urban smog. Consider that the EPA has called dioxin, a by-product of the chlorine compounds routinely used to bleach paper, "the most potent carcinogen ever tested in lab animals." Indeed, ignorance is no longer bliss.
Ristow and Bruner both started down the environmental path before most of us had any real consciousness of our industry's global impact. They found out, often the hard way, that the relative newness of the field and honest ignorance or calculated resistance from suppliers can make information-gathering challenging at best. "It's about knowing what questions to ask, and sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get answers," recounted Ristow. Their trailblazing has taught them that every answer should lead to another question, a process of opening endless doors to get to the bottom of issues. But their persistence has paid off-as veritable walking encyclopedias of environmentally responsible publishing, they now have the knowledge to make informed decisions about their publishing practices, even in the face of schedule and budget crunches and complex environmental dilemmas. "While there's no such thing as publishing with no environmental impact, there is environmentally responsible publishing," stressed Ristow.
Paper in the Public Eye
Most of the discussion during the seminar focused on paper, which makes the publishing industry's most obvious impact on the environment. According to Bruner, many paper companies continue to practice environmentally damaging forms of logging, such as clearcutting old-growth forests or replacing diverse wildlife cultures with monocultures. And while paper companies are fond of advertising that five trees are planted for every one harvested, in actuality four of those saplings usually die in planting. Selective harvesting is an alternative to clearcutting that preserves topsoil, biodiversity, and the wildlife environment, but the term can be very loosely interpreted. A relatively new phenomenon is forest certification, an environmental stamp of approval that provides consumers with the assurance that the forests harvested for their paper products are managed sustainably, using ecologically sound practices. The lesson: It's important to know where the virgin fiber for your paper comes from. If your paper supplier buys pulp from another source, find out the environmental track record of that company.
Considering the controversies surrounding the logging industry, it's not surprising that there's increasing interest in the use of tree-free papers, such as those made of bamboo, hemp, and kenaf. Kenaf, a relative of cotton and okra, produces roughly nine times the biomass per year of an acre of trees. Although kenaf paper is now approximately three times the cost of regular paper, Bruner emphasized that its cost is directly related to supply and demand-the more publishers request it, the more the cost will become competitive in the market. But while tree-free paper alternatives solve the problem of clearcutting old-growth forests, their harvesting raises other questions. For example, while bamboo is a promising quick-growth option, its widespread cultivation may end up creating monocultures in Indonesia that threaten the existence of the country's native Panda bears. Another consideration is the labor that goes into producing the alternative crops: What is the impact on the (often Third World) indigenous cultures producing them? Also, what about the petroleum that must be used to ship crops halfway around the world? The answer is that there are no easy answers-only holistic, informed decisions to be made.
What About Recycled Papers?
While the word "recycled" connotes unquestionable environmental virtue to most of us, Ristow has found out that the term is as loosely defined as the word "natural" in the food industry. EPA and state guidelines for recycled paper are continually changing. For a paper content of 50/10 (50 percent preconsumer, 10 percent postconsumer), it's the postconsumer content-the amount recycled from what gets into people's homes-that has environmental significance. It's important to know how the percentages are calculated, learned Ristow. Labeling standards increasingly require that recycled percentages be based on total paper weight, but many paper mills and vendors still base their percentages on fiber content. Consumers should also be aware that a paper's high postconsumer content does not necessarily mean it's ecologically benign. The de-inking process often involves the use of toxic bleaches, and de-inking paper with metallic inks can result in sludge that needs to be carted to hazardous waste dumps.
TCF ad ECF Papers
Another issue every publisher should consider is the use of chlorine in paper manufacturing. Bruner helped to demystify the difference between ECF (elementally chlorine free) paper and TCF (totally chlorine free) paper: "ECF paper is manufactured without the use of chlorine but still allows trace amounts of dioxin into the water stream, while TCF paper uses no chlorine at all. Think of ECF as pollution control, and TCF as pollution prevention." The dilemma for some is that TCF paper is not recycled-it is virgin stock because totally chlorine free paper products haven't been out in the paper stream long enough to be recycled. Interestingly, Bruner and Ristow have taken different stands on the chlorine issue. Bruner was one of the first in the country to use TCF paper, because she decided that reducing the use of chlorine is a more pressing environmental issue than using recycled paper. She has found TCF paper to be comparable in quality and price to standard recycled papers. Alternatively, Ristow has chosen recycled paper over virgin TCF stock, in part because Sierra Club Books has a commitment to publish on recycled stock. To add to the complexity of the equation, both acknowledged that 100 percent virgin stock may actually be more environmentally sound than 100 percent recycled stock, depending on the harvesting practices of the paper mills producing them. In the midst of such environmental conundrums, however, the overarching imperative remains clear: Publishers must take responsibility to understand the ramifications of their actions.
Strategies for Change
What can publishers do, individually and collectively, to make a difference? Ristow and Bruner offered several practical strategies for making ecologically sound choices: