The PGN exists to help promote environmental awareness and good practice throughout the publishing industry. Open to anyone, regardless of position or department, across all UK publishing houses big or small, our quarterly information sharing forums support grass roots initiatives. The PGN complements and collaborates with the BA/PA Environmental Action Group (EAG).

Background

The Publishers’ Green Network (PGN) was established by four members of different publishing houses in May 2007. The original committee consisted of Ashley Lodge, Chair, who was at the time Corporate Responsibility Manager at HarperCollins, Toby Sawday of Alastair Sawday Publishing, Helen Coyle of Hachette and Beka Cohen of Thames & Hudson.

The PGN was set up to help provide an environmental information exchange at grass roots level to any executives involved in environmental initiatives within their publishing houses. The first meeting was held in October 2007 and since then membership has increased to include over 30 different publishing houses from the largest to the smallest in the country. Current publishers who are members of the PGN include publishing houses such as Penguin, Pearson, Random House, Earthscan and publishing departments of galleries, museums and government departments such as Tate, National Gallery and the Central Office of Information.

Committee

The committee organise meetings in their spare time on a completely voluntary basis. The current committee consists of:

• Ashley Lodge, Pearson (Chair)
• Sam Mawson, Egmont
• Jane Hyne, National Gallery
• Gareth Steed, Elsevier

Meetings

Meetings are held three times at year at venues in central London. Each meeting has a focus on a particular issue and consists of case studies, best practice sharing, round table discussions and presentations from PGN members and external speakers. At each meeting all members agree the areas they would like covered in the next meeting.

A few of the areas that regularly come up for discussion include:

• energy reduction initiatives
• carbon offsetting
• environmental staff engagement
• sustainably managed paper
• eco print initiatives
• waste management
• supply chain integrity
• greener packaging
• the environmental impact of digitalisation on publishing

Some of the external organisations who have presented to the group include:

• 10:10
• WRAP
• PEFC
• PREPS
• Clays

Membership

Membership is open to all publishing houses in the UK. Members are required to attend at least one of the three meetings per year or send another representative from their publishing house.

All members can access the presentations, minutes of meetings and relevant discussion areas on the private PGN wiki: http://publishersgreennetwork.wik.is If you’re a member who requires access to the wiki please contact Claire Anker at the Publishers’ Association.

Further Information

Any requests for further information should be emailed to the Chair, Ashley Lodge, at publishersgreennetwork@hotmail.co.uk