UNC Press Statement of Commitment to Implement Environmentally Responsible Printing Practices
The University of North Carolina Press is concerned about the future of the world’s remaining ancient forests. Logging is the leading cause of deforestation, and the United States is disproportionately responsible due to our voracious rate of consumption. With only five percent of the world’s population, we consume twenty percent of the world’s wood products. Sadly, no more than six percent of America’s old-growth forests still remain and eighty-five percent of these remaining stands are threatened by on-going or planned human activities (such as logging, agricultural clearing, and mining).
As a result, university presses are making a group commitment to implement policies that will facilitate the global conservation of old-growth forests and ensure that presses are not contributing to the destruction of these irreplaceable natural treasures.
As part of this initiative, we are writing to inform specific suppliers and printers of the purchasing preferences of The University of North Carolina Press. The Press procurement policies will be fully implemented by October, 2003 and will be based on the following guidelines.
- Purchasing preferences will be given to post-consumer recycled products and products made from agricultural fibers.
- For any papers that contain virgin wood, purchasing preference will be given to paper that has been independently certified by the Forest Stewardship Council according to strict ecological criteria.
- Out of concern for the long-term health impacts of dioxins and persistent organic pollutants, purchasing preference will be given to chlorine-free products.
- Strategies aimed at conservation and efficiency (such as e-mail, dual-sided copying, recycling, etc.) will be implemented to minimize overall office consumption of fiber by 25 percent.
We would like paper suppliers and printers to help us stimulate the market for papers that meet book publishing specifications as well the qualifications described above. To ensure that this policy is implemented, we will ask paper suppliers and printers to audit the papers supplied to university presses and certify in writing what fiber is contained in the papers, where the papers originate, and whether they meet the qualifications listed above.
UNC Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since its founding.