The 2022 edition of London Book Fair featured an afternoon dedicated to sustainability and a sustainability keynote. The 2023 edition stepped up a level with a full 3 days of programming in a dedicated sustainability hub, and an opening keynote from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who is about to publish his first book which focuses on the climate crisis. 

 

The sustainability hub suffered a pillar between the audience and speakers, but the visual  obstruction did not hamper the interactions. The first day’s programming was led by Sherri Aldis, formerly head of UN publications and now Director of the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe. She opened the hub underlining the role the publishing sector has to play in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGSs) underlining how the SDG Publishers Compact, launched together with the IPA, had reached nearly 300 signatories in just over 2 years.

 

The first session proper looked at the Compact in more detail. That was led by Michiel Kolman, Chair of IPA’s Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee and the President of IPA at the time of the launch of the SDG Book Club accompanied by Irina Lumelsky, acting Head of UN Publications. 

 

In opening remarks, IPA President Karine Pansa, spoke about the journey of the publishing sector so far – from the book club to the compact and all of the other sector initiatives.

 

These kind of forums are essential for us to learn from each other and move forward, together, as a sector. 

 

‘Together’ also is part of the Goals – number 17 ‘partnerships for the goals’ – I really have to thank Michiel and Rachel, and you Sherri, Irina and your team as well as all of the SDG book club partners. Publishing is not just a competitive business model, it’s a global network of individuals who, together, have a massive impact on how we live and enjoy our lives. Publishers have been improving the world for years. When we started there wasn’t a sustainability hub at London Book Fair. Let’s keep working together and forming new partnerships, so that publishing can play its part in achieving the Goals. 

 

Kolman and Lumelsky then dissected the progress around the Compact to a full audience. Lumelsky reporting on the results of a survey of Compact signatories.

 

Other highlights of the programming included one on the important role publishers have to play in education, featuring IPA EC members Lawrence Njagi (Kenya) and Pranav Gupta (India), a session on the sustainability of book fairs featuring London Book Fair’s Gareth Rapley talking with Frankfurt’s Juergen Boos, as well as a lively discussion with Rachel Martin (Elsevier), Louis Coiffait-Gunn (Publishers Association), Porter Anderson (Publishing Perspectives) and Sherri Aldis on what is needed to accelerate progress on the SDGs which mentioned the SDG Book club now spouting local chapters all over the world.

 

Day 2 of London Book Fair kicked off with IPA President, Karine Pansa welcoming the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for his opening keynote. Pansa welcomed Khan and his commitment to both London as an international level cultural hub and a more environmentally respectful city. She underlined the dual nature of publishing in tackling the climate crisis – through the books it publishes and the way publishers conduct themselves as businesses. Khan, speaking in conversation with Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association, was keen to underline the need for urgent actions and that Mayors of cities in many countries could be ‘doers’. He spoke of his forthcoming book as a sort of guidebook to move from fatalism and apathy to a action focused approach and recognized the importance of London’s publishing and other creative industries saying that “good culture binds society, great culture shapes it”.

 

Sustainability continued on the Main Stage programming with Sustainability in Book Publishing – What has Been Achieved to Date and What Still Needs to be Done? The panel discussed the approaches that the individual publishing houses of Bloomsbury, Hachette and Elsevier are taking to address their carbon emissions and mentioned the “tree to me” campaign launched during London Book Fair by the Society of Authors. The campaign is deigned to encourage authors to discuss sustainability with their publishers. 

 

Back at the Sustainability lounge, there were presentations of two important research projects. The first was the recently released research paper on Book Returns by the RISE Bookselling programme of the EIBF and a study on “designed for recycling” by the UK BIC green supply chain committee. There was also an update on the progress of the 2030 Accelerator – an initiative of multiple individual publishers and service providers looking to make concrete progress on a number of sustainability issues by June this year. Jörg Engelstädter, head of Canon’s Future Book Forum, summarised the session as sharing ideas about the sustainability impact of a book where no two books are the same and not every book is a sustainably produced book. Elsevier’s Rachel Martin presented the Carbon Label workstream which you can read more about here. IPA member the Publishers Association also shared two concrete tools developed for their members the carbon calculator and materiality matrix. 

The final day featured practical presentations from individual publishing houses, including Penguin Random house and Harper Collins, that brought an end a very successful sustainability focus that should inspire many in the book sector.