Tuesday, December 28, 2010

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!