Dr Christian Ebert, the new Director of Strategic Marketing and Sales at the Frankfurt Book Fair, got proceedings underway with a quick-fire tour of the different initiatives taken by the fair to be more sustainable and how this was a key value the fair wanted to communicate. Initiatives like reduced carpet, and free drinking water introduced this year were highlights.
Mary Glenn, Head of UN Publications then presented the progress made so far towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the provisional results of the latest survey of SDG Publishers Compact signatories which demonstrated progress across the board in terms of communication of engagement both internally and externally.
The session then focused on the 1000 Actions Campaign launched in September whereby actors in the book sector are invited to add their sustainability actions, big and small, to the IPA SDG Dashboard. The target is 1000 Actions before the United Nations Under-Secretary-General speaks at the 34th international Publishers Congress in Guadalajara on 5 December. There are currently just under 200 actions on the dashboard.
Participants at the summit shared their initiatives. Examples included association led initiatives in Brazil and Australia around the compact, accessibility, and surveys on diversity and inclusion and sustainability practices. The European and International Booksellers Federation mentioned their first study on sustainability in bookselling as well as a study on consumer habits which includes information on second hand books. A project in Canada covered life-cycle analysis, and Hachette in France presented its Ecodesign week.
The summit continued to gather book sector actors from around the world and closed with the now traditional group photo.