"We have to get there as resources dwindle, and to get to a circular economy, it's secondhand and it's not pulping," said Debbie James, founder of Kibworth Books in Kibworth, England, during a panel on sustainable bookstores at the RISE Bookselling Conference in Verona, Italy, last week. "It's keeping extant books on a journey."
On the panel with James were Izmarij Sadat, co-owner of Doorgelezen.nl, an online new and used bookstore in the Netherlands, and Fabrizio Lombardo, operations director for Librerie Coop, a network of 40 cooperative bookstores located in Italy. Tomás Kenny, owner of Kenny's Bookshop in Galway, Ireland, moderated the session.
A major topic of discussion was shipping and returns, which account for the lion's share of carbon emissions in bookselling. James, who opened Kibworth Books 16 years ago, explained that last financial year she decided to purchase "solely from wholesalers" for the entire year in order assess the impact that had not only on the number of deliveries to the bookstore and boxes received but also on the bookstore's margin.
The "headline news," she said, was that buying wholesale-only led to a "nearly 9% reduction on single boxes coming into the shop," and buying entirely from one source led to leaner purchasing with a much smaller need for returns. There was, however, about a 2.5% reduction in margin, and James said she's still considering whether to continue the wholesale-only method going forward. "For me, as someone so bothered about my impact on the planet, I'm thinking I would take that," she remarked, while also acknowledging that might be a "privileged position."
James also urged the booksellers in attendance to "look out for education opportunities" on sustainability, whether they come from their own trade associations or elsewhere. James mentioned that she enrolled in a free carbon literacy course at her city's university, and she suggested to booksellers that if their associations don't have programs and working groups about climate change and sustainability, they should collaborate on trying to start them.
Sadat reported that in the Netherlands, because there is a large distributor for all new titles, Central Bookhouse, this allows the distributor to "fill trucks as full as possible" and "make routes as efficient as possible." While that is a "win for the Netherlands" compared to every publisher organizing their own distribution, he said, there are still issues with returns. Most of the returns that make it back to the warehouse "never see daylight again," and "pallets and pallets of books" essentially are thrown away.
Publishers could do a lot better about learning "how many books we need to press," Sadat suggested, and booksellers could "make a step" in ordering. His own store does not do returns, partly for sustainability reasons but mainly because he and his business partner feel "that is business." If something doesn't sell, then "we need to wait some time," Sadat said.
Doorgelezen.nl is online-only, Sadat noted, and the company uses specialized packaging meant for books, which use less cardboard and result in less wasted space. Doorgelezen also typically reuses boxes, and will attach a sticker to reassure customers that "maybe the box is damaged, but the book is okay."
Touching on returns, Kenny remarked that since Brexit, returns from Ireland no longer go back to Britain and instead "all get pulped." He called the situation "madness," and wondered why it isn't widespread for publishers to do things like reward lower return rates with better discounts. He also pointed out that there was a time, at least through the 1980s, when if a store tried to buy too much, a publisher rep would simply "say no." Now, booksellers are encouraged to "buy more and more."
In the last 20 years, Lombardo said, the Italian book market has gone from seeing around 30,000 new titles published every year to nearly 70,000, which results in "more returns, more transport, more emissions." One way for booksellers to address that is to be "careful on assortment," and he emphasized that Librerie Coop is against the "centralization" of buying and other commercial decisions.
"Sustainability also means our spaces," Lombardo continued, recounting that about 10 years ago Librerie Coop began "revamping" the stores' lighting and climate systems. They've also tried to maximize natural light in designing stores, brought in furniture made from recycled materials, implemented efforts to reduce and reuse packaging, and cut down on the use of disposable items like tape. More recently, Librerie Coop has also worked to reduce the number of computers inside each shop, due to their power use. And, of course, Lombardo added, the stores educate customers and community members about climate change through the books they stock and events they run. --Alex Mutter