Over the last few years, we’ve made huge progress in reducing the carbon footprint of our activities. We’ve always avoided flying where possible, encouraging virtual author events even before global Covid lockdowns brought them into the mainstream, and going forward we are committed to a no-fly policy. So committed that our US publicist, Tom Flynn, made the epic 27-hour train journey each way between his home in Chicago and New York earlier this year when he needed to be there for meetings.
Lately, we have been focussing even more on how we can produce books more sustainably, including creating fewer carbon emissions. Our publicists have done great work in convincing press and endorsers to read electronic proofs, meaning that the number of proofs we are printing is now less than a fifth of what it was at the beginning of the year. We offer ebook versions of all our published titles, but we have also been investigating ways to cut CO2 emissions in our physical book production, starting to use the Publishers Association’s new Carbon Calculator to guide our production choices.