PRH releases inaugural sustainability report and unveils solar panel programme

Penguin Random House (PRH) has published its first ever Sustainability Impact Report showcasing its attempts to fight climate change, backed by more than 1,000 newly installed solar panels across its Essex warehouse roof. 

As part of its work on climate change, the publisher’s distribution division has recently installed 1,044 panels at its largest UK warehouse in Frating. The move forms part of PRH’s commitment to be climate neutral across its global supply chain by 2030.  

The solar panels, installed by local company Push Energy, are expected to generate around 13% of the site’s overall electricity consumption. Any additional electricity generated which is not used on site will be exported back into the National Grid. The solar panels are expected to have a lifespan of around 20 years.  

More than 600 PRH UK colleagues are based at the Frating site, which houses distribution, customer service, technology and finance teams. Other environmental projects at the warehouse have included replacing all lighting across the office and warehouse space with more energy efficient LED lights and staff pioneering the use of the "load hog" pallet lid which is a reusable alternative to shrink-wrapping pallets of books to protect them in transit.

Collectively, innovation in distribution has reduced single-use plastic waste on the site by 47% since 2019. 

Colin James, m.d. for PRH UK distribution, said: “We’re constantly thinking about how we can innovate to reduce the energy we consume across our operations. We ship over 100 million books a year from our warehouses in the UK, the majority from our Frating site, and so it’s crucial that sustainability is at the heart of how we work every day. Investing in solar energy is an exciting step towards reaching our ultimate goal of carbon neutrality.” 

Further details of how the publisher is addressing climate change have been released in a dedicated Sustainability Impact Report, the first document of its kind from the publisher, with a foreword from author and climate change activist Mark Maslin. It outlines changes from 2018 to 2020/21 and the company plans to release a subsequent report each year going forward.

“Every individual, company and organisation must consider the role they have to play in combatting the climate emergency,” Tom Weldon (pictured), c.e.o. of PRH writes in the introduction of the company's "Journey to Zero" report. “As a publisher, one of our most important roles is through the books we publish and their power to change minds and influence behaviour. But we also need to take urgent action to put sustainability at the heart of our business strategy and the decisions we make every day.” 

The organisation’s key focus areas for sustainability are becoming climate neutral in its global value chain by 2030 and maintaining climate neutrality in direct operations, ensuring 100% of its paper and other core materials are ethically and sustainably sourced, and using the power of its brand, books and authors to amplify the climate emergency and encourage positive behaviour change. 

The publisher’s 2025 sustainability targets include 20% reduction of office energy, 20% reduction in waste, 25% reduction in the carbon footprint of production suppliers, including paper mills and printers, and a 50% reduction in business travel. The report states that the company will achieve ISO 14001 certification — the most widely used international standard for environmental management systems — by the end of 2022 for all its UK-owned sites and sustainability training has become mandatory for all staff involved in the production of books. 

PRH outlined how its impact has changed over the past few years. For example, in 2020 its overall carbon footprint reduced by 14% compared to its baseline year of 2018 and it removed 1,277 tons of CO² emissions by going climate neutral in direct operations. Now 100% of its paper is sustainably sourced and it has joined the Science Based Targets Initiative as part of Bertelsmann. 

Other changes include a 100% reduction of electricity in direct operations as it now only uses renewable sources, while distribution emissions have dropped by 33%.

The effects of Covid-19 were also shown in the report. Business travel was down 91% in 2020 compared to 2018 while employee commuting reduced by 51%. By contrast, IT devices raised emissions in 2020 by 139% because the company provided colleagues with equipment so they could work from home during the pandemic.

Paper appears to be the most important factor in its raised emissions over the past few years, for example travel from printer to warehouse rose by 41% while the emissions at paper mills increased by 37%. The report comes at a time when the entire industry is facing crises across its supply chain including problems around paper sources.

“The majority of areas where our emissions have increased — such as paper mills and printers — is a result due to higher paper usage in 2020,” the report reads. “Moving forward, we want to make better choices about the type of paper we use and where we print our books, so that our emissions decrease year on year regardless of increased sales.” 

The report also reveals how the organisation is setting new targets particularly in relation to two broad areas: raw materials and value chain, sales and marketing as well as direct operations, distribution and logistics. 

With raw materials, it has developed a special training kit for staff to improve sustainable practices. It is aiming for 100% of editorial and design teams to take part in its sustainable production toolkit training by the end of 2021 “to help our designers, editorial and production teams to make more informed choices about the type of paper we use, where we print our books, and the kinds of finishes (such as foil or glitter) we use on our books”. This toolkit will be launched in early 2022 and the company hopes to share it with other publishers to ensure sustainable action is taken across the industry. 

Additionally, PRH UK is one of the founding signatories to the new Publishing Declares industry-wide climate action pledge, which is led by the Publishers Association.

Siena Parker (pictured left), social impact director for PRH UK, said: “As a publisher we know we have a dual role to play in helping to combat the climate emergency. The first is through our content: by educating, shifting mindsets and driving positive behavioural change, and we have a proud history of publishing in this space over many decades. The second role is the one we play as a business, and what we can do as an organisation to minimise our own impact.  

“Over the past few years we’ve made changes to how we operate, which means we are now carbon neutral in our direct operations. We’ve also introduced a new sustainability policy this year to help our teams make more sustainable choices at work, and have improved our data reporting to capture more robust carbon data to understand our impact more accurately and be as transparent as possible. We still have important work to do to reduce emissions in our global supply chain, which is where our biggest impact lies. Collaborating with other publishers, booksellers and partners such as printers and paper mills will be crucial to playing our part.” 

The report can be downloaded from the PRH website.