Sustainability: an interview with Nosy Crow

5th November 2021

We know how important it is to our customers to be as sustainable as possible. At Bookspeed, we are keen to do as much as we can to be as green as we can, and we’re always looking for ways to be more environmentally friendly. We sit in a unique position in the industry, between customer and supplier, so we also look to ensure our carefully curated collections have a strong proportion of titles with ethical credentials.

We’re proud to sell books, because books bring joy, delight, and a world of possibilities to so many. We’re proud too that they are product made mainly from a natural material, with an indefinite life for an indefinite number of readers!

We know it’s important to mitigate as much of the environmental impact of our company’s practices where we can, and to be aware of the impact of the whole bookselling supply chain. We spoke to one of our fantastic suppliers, independent children’s publisher, Nosy Crow, to find out what they are doing to help.

About Nosy Crow

They are a multi-award winning, independent children’s publishing company making books for ages 0-12. They began publishing in 2011 and are now one of the fastest growing UK publishing companies sitting at 12^th biggest publisher of children’s books in the UK.

We chat to Nosy Crow’s Managing Director, Kate Wilson on their passion for doing the right thing and commitment to creating a more sustainable supply chain.

Nosy Crow & Sustainability

What do Nosy Crow do to be as sustainable as possible?

The honest answer is that we are just at the beginning of what will be, we anticipate, a long journey. There are three parts to the challenges for Nosy Crow and for the industry in general – printing, freight, and publishing itself. We don’t control printing and freight, but we can choose how we buy printing and freight. We can control what we do as a business – business travel, for example, or our choices of office supplies from energy to envelopes.

Although we still have a way to go to become a truly sustainable company, considering issues around sustainability and our impact on the planet is important to Nosy Crow.

Industry action groups:

We are a member of the Labour and Environment and Forestry Sources workstreams of The Book Chain Project (BCP). Although our membership isn’t a statement of our policy, it is through this group that we keep abreast of current issues, and it gives us the opportunity of collective power in enacting change.

We have also recently joined both the PA’s Sustainability Taskforce, and are signatories to their pledge, and the IPG’s Sustainability Action Group – two industry-wide collectives aiming to make a positive impact by promoting and encouraging sustainability in the publishing industry.

Our paper and board:

We estimate that the paper we use and the printing of our books account for over 50% of our Scope 3 carbon emissions and so therefore is one of our biggest focusses in terms of sustainability.

Through our membership of BCP we have access to a database of papers to help us make informed choices about the sustainability of them. Since our inception we have been committed to only using papers that score 3 stars or above on their grading system and that are therefore made from pulp gathered from responsible, renewable and sustainable sources.

Since the start of 2020 we have gone one step further and committed to using FSC graded papers for all of our printed book orders. We are in the process too of adding the FSC logo to all of our books to help consumers make informed choices about the sustainability of the goods that they purchase.

The BCP also allows us to have greater visibility of the environmental performance of the mills that we source our papers from (again, the pulp and paper industry is hugely energy intensive).

Single-use Plastics:

We have been working with our suppliers to identify and reduce our use of single-use plastics in our products and supply chain. For example, all the plastics used within the packaging of our black and white fiction books are 100% recyclable and are now an integral part of our design process when considering what materials to use, such as removing glitter varnish which contains micro-plastics and choosing non-plastic packaging options.

Our packaging:

Our warehouse pack all orders using shredded cardboard filling material (from their waste cardboard cartons).

Returns:

We work closely with our customers to keep our returns rate as low as we can and to ensure that returned books are in good condition (e.g. that any stickers used by retailers are peelable). However, when we do inevitably receive returns, we pay for them to be sorted and all saleable quality books are returned to stock rather than pulped. Returns are a huge contributor to waste, and every publisher taking the initiative to tackle returns effectively will be key to tackling our industry’s carbon footprint.

Shipping and freight:

Wherever possible we consolidate our shipments to ship as efficiently as possible and therefore minimise our carbon footprint.

Our suppliers:

We feel that it is important to maintain honest and open relationships with our print suppliers and have regular conversations about environmental and ethical performance.

The BCP has a robust Code of Conduct that is based on internationally recognised codes and laws relating to the environment and ethics. We require all of our direct print suppliers to agree to abide by its principles.

We require all suppliers to undergo and share third-party audits (e.g. ICTI and SMETA) covering labour standards, health and safety and environmental performance. We will only work with suppliers who are able to demonstrate adherence to internationally recognised standards, and where audits have identified issues we open a dialogue with the suppliers to encourage corrective action to be taken. If they fail to take the corrective action required then we will remove them from our supplier base.

Carbon footprint:

In 2022, we plan to measure our Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions; and to start the process of defining and measuring as many of our Scope 3 emissions as we can. We hope that this work will then help to inform us where our biggest carbon impacts are and the opportunities we have to reduce or offset them.

Our office:

We are conscious of the environmental credentials of the office consumables we purchase – our printer paper is all FSC, we use JiffyGreen envelopes that are FSC and plastic free, we try and use Ecover cleaning products and recycled toilet paper. We also buy fairtrade tea, coffee and sugar.

We recycle our paper, card, metals and glass and send toners and cartridges back to the manufacturer for safe disposal and recycling.

Staff and travel:

We believe that it is important that our staff are paid fairly and so all staff and interns are paid at least the London Living Wage (LLW); and we are members of the Living Wage Foundation.

For staff with longer service we offer a share option scheme; which we believe helps to foster personal investment in the longer-term performance and sustainability of the business.

We offer the cycle to work scheme and season ticket loans to encourage more environmentally friendly commuting options. When staff have to travel for business we encourage them to take trains when they can, and when air travel is unavoidable we log it and make carbon offsetting payments.

Content:

I think it’s important that we recognise our responsibility in terms of messaging: we can influence the thinking and actions of the next generation through the books we produce. Publishing books like Earth Heroes, which celebrates environmental activists, or How To Help a Hedgehog and Protect a Polar Bear, which provides children with 70 simple ways to protect the environment are very clear indications of our commitment to this, but most of the books that we publish in partnership with The National Trust – books like Sunday Funday: A Nature Activity for Every Weekend of the Year, or the 2022 Children’s Almanac – all encourage engagement with and love of the natural world. Meanwhile, including people like David Attenborough and Chris Packham among the 50 Great Britons we celebrate in Great Britons points children towards inspiring examples.

What do you think are the challenges you face in the industry regarding sustainability and more generally?

Publishing is a global business: we can create books in the UK that are illustrated by illustrators in Europe, are printed in China, and are shipped to America. Finding suppliers who can produce the whole range of books we do close to home is currently impossible – it’s not economically viable and UK printers don’t have capacity – and in any event we have to move them around the world.

Cutting ourselves off from the rest of Europe through Brexit has increased cost and complexity in ways that we are still struggling with. And the pandemic has created blockages in our supply chain as well as economic uncertainty.

Nosy Crow has excellent production values. Do you find that you need to make compromises in your finished product to ensure you meet your sustainability standards?

I think that children’s books represent extraordinarily good value for money. Many of the decisions we make – like using FSC paper, for example – add cost. We need to be sure that the content that we produce and the way we design and present it make it look as if it’s worth the RRP we put on it. We must, as an industry, educate book buyers and readers, about the costs of sustainable production.

The Publishing Association recently launched a sustainability pledge under the name Publishing Declares of which Nosy Crow are signatories. Can you tell us why this important for you to be part of?

Nosy Crow is such a tiny part of this industry, but we want to play our part in creating change, and we believe that that is most effectively done if we act together.

Thinking about communicating your sustainability standards, can you tell us how you identify the best editorial opportunities?

I’ve already mentioned our relationship with The National Trust, and I think that their commitment to encourage members and the wider public to engage with and protect the countryside and coastlines that they care for informs our publishing.

No child is too young to experience the joy of being outside, whether that’s splashing in a puddle or identifying a tree by its bark, and we hope that we provide the tools for children aged 0-12 to go out into the natural world and enjoy it, so that they feel that it’s something worth protecting.

Why is it important for Nosy Crow to inform and inspire the young minds that make up your readership?

I think that I’ve already answered this question, but basically we are making books for the generation that will inherit our planet. We know that sadly they will have to manage the mistakes that we have made and continue to make, but we hope that many of the books we make will contribute towards change and the future that is in their hands.

Can you share some of your favourite books to inspire young minds with us?

So many! I’ve mentioned a few of our books already, like Sunday Funday (and when I was a busy mum of younger children, I’d have hugely welcomed simple, inspiring ideas for getting my own kids out into nature each weekend), our 2022 Almanac, How to Help a Hedgehog and Protect a Polar Bear and Earth Heroes, but actually the book that I am maybe most proud of is I Am The Seed That Grew The Tree, a hugely ambitious book of nature poetry which we published a few years ago that is beautifully produced and illustrated – a “forever” family book, if ever there was one! Oh, and for pre-schoolers, I LOVE our stylish and clever lift-the-flap 100 First Words: Nature book by Ed Underwood, publishing in April 2022.

If I could choose to have published a book I didn’t publish, I’d chose The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It’s beautiful, it’s simple, it’s full of wit and whimsy and it’s introduces the very youngest of children to one of the most astonishing wonders of nature – the transformation of an egg into a caterpillar and then into a butterfly: “In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf…” PERFECTION!

Considering the pandemic, has anything surprised you in the industry?

I am, frankly, astonished by the way that the industry has not only survived but, in many areas, thrived.

How has navigating the pandemic been for Nosy Crow?

I know that some publishing business leaders have said that for them, personally, the pandemic has been great. I don’t feel that for a second. It’s been sad and grim. Like many businesses, we have colleagues who are vulnerable, or who are close to people who are vulnerable, and living with, and witnessing, that anxiety has been horrible. I feel – I can’t think of a better way to say this – greater tenderness for my colleagues than I did before the pandemic as Zoom has given me insight into how they live – the shared flats, the toddlers demanding attention… But it has inspired us too.

We are hugely proud of our book, Coronavirus and Covid: a Book for Children About The Pandemic, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, from which we’ve made no money, but which was an free digital book made available within three weeks of the start of lockdown to help families and children understand the disease that was disrupting our lives, and has since been printed in two print editions, each updated with new information as it emerged.

Do you anticipate any upcoming trends both in terms of content but also with a focus on sustainability?

The issue of sustainability, of understanding, loving and protecting the planet we all live on, isn’t a subject that is going to go away. Frankly, it isn’t a subject that CAN go away. In ways that are direct and indirect, I know that we will continue to address it for children of all ages.