Victory! Random House goes ancient forest friendly

Feature story - July 7, 2005

LONDON, United Kingdom — Random House, the biggest general publishing house in the UK, has publicly committed to making its book production "ancient forest friendly". This is a major step in helping to ensure the survival of the world's last ancient forests, and encouraging other publishers to do the same.

zoom

Stephen Fry adds his signature in support of the Book Campaign.

We've been working with Random House as part of the Greenpeace Book Campaign, which encourages publishers to stop sourcing paper from ancient forests and instead commit to ancient forest friendly solutions. Random House will now be working with its suppliers to move towards Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified and recycled paper for its books.

Our Greenpeace UK Book Campaigner, Belinda Fletcher, says that this is not just lip service from Random House. "This commitment is the most comprehensive commitment developed by a UK publisher to date and sets a good example for other publishing houses to follow," she said.

The announcement is also great news for Random House authors. Some of the big names supporting our campaign include Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Terry Pratchett and Phillip Pullman. Children's authors Anne Fine and John O'Farrell, who have also been supporting the Greenpeace campaign, were delighted with the news.

=""="">

Anne said, "I am really delighted that Random House have made this commitment. I very much hope my next book will now be printed on ancient forest friendly paper, which will help preserve the world's last ancient forests for the children of the future."

John O'Farrell went that one step further, adding, "I will now do my bit for the environment by recycling all my jokes."

Random House UK is following in the footsteps of its Canadian counterpart, who along with 70 other publishing houses have made formal commitments to phase out ancient forest fibre from their books. As a result six million Canadian books have been printed on ancient forest friendly paper, including JK Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".