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Making a DifferenceBerkshire’s goal is to improve global understanding and to empower citizens - especially the young people who are our future leaders in government and business - to make well-informed decisions. To do this, we present different points of view and work with people of many political persuasions, academic perspectives, and religious beliefs.Environmental sustainability is especially important at Berkshire because the company’s co-founder, CEO, and owner, Karen Christensen, is also an environmental author. Her books include Home Ecology: Making Your World a Better Place (1989), Eco Living: A Handbook for the 21st Century (2000), and The Armchair Environmentalist (2004). Berkshire is recognized as the publisher of major academic and professional reference titles on sustainability. We have also begun working to promote understanding of the environmental impact of both print and digital publishing and of the industry’s old-fashioned, inefficient supply chains. Karen Christensen has taken the lead in explaining that digital publishing has a greater environmental impact than most people realize. You will find information and practical tips about creating a sustainable library by clicking to our Building Sustainable Libraries resource page. Berkshire also has joined the U.S. Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit group working with the book and newspaper industries (publishers, printers, paper manufacturers, etc.) to minimize the social and environmental impacts of their businesses. Here is an example of one of the Eco Audits Included in all our publications:
Publishing SustainablyAt Berkshire we always ask ourselves how we can run our business in a way that will help preserve and even restore the planet. Publishing an encyclopedia devoted entirely to the idea (and the practice) of sustainability makes the challenge even more immediate. Using a “green” printer like Thomson-Shore and choosing the right paper, as we did for the Berkshire Encyclopedia of China (and are doing for the sustainability volumes), is only a first step. Submitting each volume for an Eco-Audit sponsored by The Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help those in the publishing industry conserve natural resources, is a second. Many in the industry believe that depending more and more on the electronic world is a planet-friendly move. But reading and publishing online — as well as the virtually paperless editorial processes gradually adopted by sustainability-savvy publishers (Berkshire included) — are not carbon-free activities: data centers consume vast quantities of resources to keep the arrays of servers on which we depend running smoothly, twenty-four hours a day; e-waste and rare mineral extraction are other undesirable side effects of the paperless revolution. After chairing the first Green Data Centres conference in London in 2008, Berkshire Publishing CEO Karen Christensen says, "I came to realize that in some ways publishing on paper is a better choice than e-publishing. (We’re doing both, trying to improve and streamline our digital and our 'hardcopy' procedures.) Books that last, because of the paper they are printed on and the words they contain, fulfill an important concept of sustainability—the production of quality goods with a long life." Berkshire hopes to offset its carbon footprint (at least somewhat) by the knowledge that readers gain from the pages herein. Other factors besides the physical printing of books contribute significantly to the carbon footprint industry-wide - for one, the supply chain and shipping methods by which books get to distributors, and finally to customers, are extremely inefficient and costly. (Volume 2, The Business of Sustainability, offers a substantial contribution to this discussion.) We are learning about our subject as we live it, and have the privilege of doing so with an extraordinary roster of sustainability experts and professionals. Berkshire is continually looking for ways to reduce the environmental impact of its activities while ensuring that the vital information provided in Berkshire publications reaches larger readership and has wider influence in the business world and policy community. Barrington InstituteBerkshire Publishing has also incorporated an independent, nonprofit educational organization, the Barrington Institute, to undertake valuable projects that are not commercial. For further details, please visit the Barrington Institute’s website by clicking here.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)To work toward a sustainable future, we must find solutions to the social as well as environmental problems facing nations and communities, thus ensuring economic stability, access to health care and education, and development opportunity to all. Academic and educational publishers have an important role to play in all these areas because they provide trustworthy, up-to-date teaching resources and expert information needed for policy planning and business innovation. Berkshire donates books or offers special pricing to those in less-developed countries and to institutions in low-income regions. For more information, please email info@berkshirepublishing.com.
Read more about CSR:CSR and CSR2 (from the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability volume 2: The Business of Sustainability).
Corporate Social Responsibility, from the Berkshire Encyclopedia of China.
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