The Green Supply Chain

The focus of this article is on how to create books or other paper products that have a significantly reduced, if any, impact on the environment. To achieve this involves integrating the principles of the three Ds— dematerialization, detoxification, and decarbonization (or de-energization)—and the three Rs—reduction, re-use, and recycling— into how products are designed, created, developed, and manufactured. The aim is to look at how businesses, and publishing in particular, are responding to the need for change, and at what they are doing to reduce the size of their environmental footprint. This article was originally published as a chapter in The Green Design and Print Production Handbook (Ilex, 2013).