Last week I attended the second Green BIC (Book Industry Communication) Brunch focused on reducing waste in the supply chain. I am trying to educate myself about all aspects of book publishing and as sustainability is a topic I like to keep open in my everyday life I took advantage of this opportunity.

There were three main speakers but as the event was sponsored by HP, we got to hear from Paul Randall – Product Marketing Manager of HP Publishing Solutions. Randall introduced HP Piazza, fully automated cloud-based solution for printing on demand. Please note, I am not a particularly technical person and therefore may be using simpler terminology. HP Piazza offers to store any piece of work in a print-ready format so that it can be produced on demand and delivered anywhere in the world. Basically, you store the book in the right format ready for publishing and when you get an order you send it to be printed wherever is closest to the end customer.

Manos Kapterian, COO/SVP Operations International Markets for Pearson (educational services provider), explained further that thanks to this system they are able to deliver the requested book within 72 hours regardless of whether it is in stock or not. This has reversed the traditional way of publishing that starts with the product and finds its way to the customer as now it all starts with the customer and delivers the required product directly and on demand. This allows the publisher to reduce their financial risk caused by the discrepancies between forecasting and the actual demand. It also cuts out warehouse cost, reduces delivery time and delivery journey (as the book is printed at a partner provider to be found closest to the end customer), carbon footprint, energy used and also landfill overflows due to unsold stock.

Nigel Wyman, Sales and Marketing Director at Gardners (leading wholesaler of English books in Europe) talked about their emphasis on packaging to prevent damages to the product as that results in waste. Gardners are focusing on recyclable, reusable and plastic-free materials. They have also successfully and significantly reduced their landfill waste through delivering any non-recyclable waste to a nearby Energy Recovery facility. The lighting in their warehouses has been exchanged for a more energy-efficient model, the deliveries are done in long-life plastic totes and any printed materials (catalogues, marketing materials, etc.) are available in PDFs.

Kate McHale, Campaign Manager at Waterstones, talked about the solutions that are probably most relevant to a typical end-user, i.e. the bookshop visitor; mentioning paper bags, no automatic till receipts and electronic gift cards. She introduced Waterstones’ effort to address waste and sustainability in all its areas including cafes, in-house stationary, energy usage and recycling processes. They are focusing on behaviour through installation of smart meters for lights and heaters throughout their stores.

The recording of the session is available here