Environmental Policy
Faber is one of the world’s great publishing houses, and one of the largest independent publishing houses in Britain. Our unique history and identity make us an industry leader, renowned for our serious engagement with the world’s great writers, artists and thinkers. We are living and working against the backdrop of an escalating climate crisis. Deforestation, excessive waste and carbon emissions are a real threat to our climate, and to our future. We believe it is our responsibility to minimise our impact upon the environment, and recognise the necessity of developing and supporting environmentally friendly practices in all our work.
As a commercial enterprise, we are aware of the potential damage we can inflict upon the earth’s resources and ecosystem. Whenever we commit to a new project, we undertake to fully consider its environmental impact. We commit to focusing on doing everything well, consciously never wastefully; we do not seek growth for growth’s sake, but strive to influence and shape the world in which we live for the better. Faber now has a team of staff members dedicated to assessing the resources we use (for example, paper, electricity and transport) and the efficiency with which we use them across all sides of the business. This team will meet once a month to ensure that we are continually evaluating and meeting our goals, practices and progress and that our environmental policy is up to date.
We are proud to publish many authors who share our passion for preserving a living environment.
Current supply chain practices
- Print on Demand and Auto Stock replenishment programme which cuts down on excess stock, shipping and printing.
- Six-month print policy for most titles to reduce pulping.
- Do not send out unsolicited POS material.
- Assess the environmental accreditations and policies of any new suppliers before engaging their service.
- Proofs available via NetGalley.
Current in-house practices
- We offer cycling parking bays and a cycling initiative for staff.
- We use recyclable envelopes.
- We use energy efficient lighting in our offices, including some automatic switches in communal areas.
- We donate used IT equipment and surplus books to charity for use in the community.
- None of our office waste goes to landfill.
- Consolidated file copies so that fewer are wasted.
Supply chain goals
- To measure and begin to reduce our carbon footprint by end of 2022.
- To be able to report on our paper certification by end of 2021.
- To ensure that no illegal or unsustainable wood fibre is used at any point in our supply chain.
- To increase our use of accredited local suppliers and printers to reduce transport distances.
- To use biodegradable finishes on our covers and jackets where possible.
- To monitor closely use and production of proofs and reduce the number of proofs we produce that are not used and have figures on this by end of 2021.
- To cease using laminate coating on the covers for deep backlist short reprints.
In-house goals
- To measure and reduce our scope 1 emissions by end of 2022.
- Begin offsetting business flights to render them carbon neutral.
- Increase staff awareness of and engagement with environmental issues by having specialist talks.
- Monthly meetings as a team made up of members of staff across all departments and looking to update the policy on an annual basis.
- Assess changing our energy supplier to a more sustainable source by the end of 2021.
- Discuss and implement a method for measuring how much paper, envelopes, etc. we consume on a monthly basis.
- To decide on and partner with a local charity that engages in conservation or bio-diversity preservation.