Sustainability & Climate Focus
Michael O’Mara Books is committed to reducing its carbon impact as much as possible. A small change can make a huge difference, so we have taken measures to reduce waste and environmental damage.
Publishing Declares
Michael O’Mara Books are a founding signatory of the following Publishing Declares pledge in association with the Publishers Association. The purpose of Publishing Declares is to raise awareness of the sustainability issues most relevant to the UK book and journal publishing industry; to aid the discovery of existing tools and resources and to inspire action that results in sustained behaviour change.
Publishing Declares
We, the undersigned, pledge to:
- Join the global climate effort to limit warming to 1.5°C by setting ambitious, measurable targets across our own operations and extended supply chain to achieve net zero as soon as possible and by 2050 at the latest.
- Protect nature and biodiversity, working with supply chain partners that are resource efficient, use sustainable materials and processes wherever possible in the content we produce, and constantly innovating to make use of new and recycled materials.
- Collaborate with our peers, authors, illustrators, supply chain partners, and business partners to translate our climate aspirations and commitments into tangible actions to safeguard our planet for future generations.
- Empower our colleagues to become climate literate and support them to bring that knowledge into the work that they do.
- Use our expertise, platform, and voice to raise awareness and drive positive climate action wherever we can.
Production
Production is a very important part of the publishing process, and it is where the most impactful changes can be made to create a more sustainable publishing industry. In our production department, there are a couple of methods we use to keep our work sustainable. The majority of our books are printed using FSC certified materials, so from well-managed forests or recycled sources. We also try to work primarily with printers who are similarly committed to environmental safety, often demonstrated with the ISO 14001 certification, or equivalent. Our suppliers include UK-based printers who have signed the recent Publishers Association’s Publishing Declares pledge, and an international freight forwarder with their own environmental policy that is regularly reviewed and externally verified. Some of the terms used here are explained below:
(EMS) ISO 14001 – the standard created by ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation)
specifying the requirements for an effective Environmental Management System. Certification demonstrates that an organisation is both conscious of their environmental impacts and actively looks to improve their operations.
FSC materials – materials made from FSC certified forests (meaning well-managed) and/or recycled sources.
In the Office
In our offices, we only use plastic-free jiffy bags for mailings. We are proactively limiting our paper use, reducing the amount of paper that we use by printing double-sided where possible. We are committed to using recycled and FSC® certified paper for printing, correspondence and marketing materials and we have a recycling collection service in place.
We are looking at all aspects of our business to see where we can conserve energy, by checking everything from our energy and stationery suppliers, to buying cleaning materials in bulk, using sustainable toilet roll and using greener taxi firms.
We also support a number of environmental charities. Please visit this page to see the full list: https://www.mombooks.com/we-support
