Sustainability will be to the fore at the London Book Fair taking place at Olympia in London this week.
Among the 100 seminar sessions at the event, covering everything from writing and illustration to international rights and author interviews, there will be 17 with sustainability as the core focus. And these are taking place in a dedicated sustainability lounge.
However, few printers will be making presentations on the theme despite some of the initiatives that UK printers have made and the impact that printing close to the point of sale could have on carbon footprints.
There are some UK companies with their own presence. Hobbs the Printers, Gomer Press are joined by Printondemand-Worldwide’s Bookvault print on demand offering and Park Communications as part of the Graphius Group.
CPI Books and Clays are exhibiting at the show as part of the Independent Publishers’ Guild area. This will not prevent teams from other UK book printers from prowling the aisles and meeting contacts for discussions about forthcoming projects.
It is a different matter for overseas printers. There is a sprinkling of printers from Italy, from China and a strong contingent from Turkey. This is not really an event for book production but for striking deals on new books and for new authors to get to understand the industry they want to join. A number of presentations will focus on this audience.
The Sustainability Hub is a new feature for 2023, reflecting how the topic has climbed the agenda. CPI Books is sponsor behind two sessions: Cover finishing where Jamie Beale, technical director of Graphic Image Films will be joined by Christophe Dujardin from Leonard Kurz and Working with publishers where Lisa Fartaro, director environment and sustainability for CPI will be joined by sustainability leaders from Bloomsbury, Taylor & Francis and Oxford University Press.
The Publishers Association will introduce its carbon calculator and materials matrix in the session that follows while Jörg Engelstädter will introduce the Publishing 2030 Accelerator and the first initiatives towards reducing the carbon impact of printing and publishing. He will be joined by Rachel Martin, global director of sustainability at Elsevier and chair of the IPA inclusive publishing and literacy committee.
