05/07/2005 — Random House,
the biggest general publishing house in the
UK, has publicly committed to making its book
production "ancient forest friendly".
This is a major step in helping to ensure
the survival of the world's last ancient forests,
and encouraging other publishers to do the
same.
We've been working with Random House as part
of the Greenpeace Book Campaign, which encourages
publishers to stop sourcing paper from ancient
forests and instead commit to ancient forest
friendly solutions. Random House will now
be working with its suppliers to move towards
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified
and recycled paper for its books.
Our Greenpeace UK Book Campaigner, Belinda
Fletcher, says that this is a big commitment
from Random House. "This is the most
comprehensive commitment developed by a UK
publisher to date and sets a good example
for other publishing houses to follow,"
she said.
The announcement is also great news for Random
House authors. Some of the big names supporting
our campaign include Ben Elton, Stephen Fry,
Terry Pratchett and Phillip Pullman. Children's
authors Anne Fine and John O'Farrell, who
have also been supporting the Greenpeace campaign,
were delighted with the news.
Leading British children's author Anne Fine
adds her support to the Book Campaign
Anne said, "I am really delighted that
Random House have made this commitment. I
very much hope my next book will now be printed
on ancient forest friendly paper, which will
help preserve the world's last ancient forests
for the children of the future."
John O'Farrell went that one step further,
adding, "I will now do my bit for the
environment by recycling all my jokes."
Random House UK is following in the footsteps
of its Canadian counterpart, who along with
70 other publishing houses have made formal
commitments to phase out ancient forest fibre
from their books. As a result six million
Canadian books have been printed on ancient
forest friendly paper, including JK Rowling's
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".
