Yesterday, and presumably via wire and not on bleached and un-recycled paper, publishing company Random House announced that it will, “increase the proportion of recycled paper it buys for its books to at least 30 percent by 2010, from 3 percent now” (Book Publisher Sets A Goal on Recycling, The New York Times).

While the news is uplifting, I am a bit surprised that their current usage is only 3%. I don’t know all of the in’s and out’s of the publishing industry, but I would have put the percentage much higher by this point in time. 3% sounds more appropriate for the late 80’s to me…

Is the cost of recycled paper really that high to have prevented it from being used more by such a large publishing company? Or perhaps it is a supplier issue, either in volume and reliability, or perhaps a weakness in getting the message out. Either way, in an age when consumers have been using, for some time now, recycled copy paper for their office needs, recycled napkins and paper towels for their messes, and even coffee-cup finger burn preventers for their $28 cup of Starbucks coffee, I would have thought the publishing industry would be further along than 3%.

Are all publishers around the same usage? Is the general shift toward greater concern for paper consumption and its impact on the environment? Is Random House breaking away from its peers, or lagging far behind them in increased recycled paper usage?

TAGS: CSR | Social Enterprise | Paper | Recycling | Books | Publishing | Random House | Printing | Magazines

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 7:03 pm and is filed under Books and Films, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Enterprise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.