Going Green With Barefoot

At the heart of our work at Barefoot Books is an understanding of the fragility and the inter-relatedness of the world's ecology. Because we make books, we have to work with paper and ink, with transport and distribution — with energy used as fuel.

To minimise the environmental impact of our activities, we have taken the following measures. To learn more about how Barefoot has gone green, please read our press release below.

Going Green for the Next Generation

Independent Publisher Barefoot Books Takes a New Approach

Award-winning, independent children's publisher, Barefoot Books has taken active steps to promote global conservation and reduce the impact of climate change on the lives of children. By making chnges in its office culture, and breathing new life into its environmental content of business partners, educators, parents, and retailers, extending the message of Live Earth and The Alliance for Climate Protection and empowering children to make a difference. Nancy Traversy, co-founder and CEO, comments:

"We founded Barefoot Books as working mothers with a particular interest in the kind of world our children will inherit. The traditional book industry operates on a returnable basis which means thatbooks often move from the publisher to the distributor and then back again. This wastes lot of fuel and cardboard and often results in damaged product which can't be sold. At Barefoot, we have adopted a more grassroots, communal approach to marketing our books, avoiding the wasteful practices of the bigger distributors, and working with a broad network of independent retailers and partners, including our rapidly growing community of home-sellers.

Internally, changes we have made include printing our books and marketing material on recycled or ancient forest-friendly paper; requiring our suppliers to provide environmental audits; minimizing paper usage; introducing low-energy lighting; encouraging low-impact transport; and supporting local community activities.

Last Spring, we published a new book and CD combo which celebrates the value we seek to promote. 'Whole World' is a playfull adaptation of the famous spiritual song which we have turned into a clarion call for social responsibility. The book includes simple eco-tips for young readers and the chorus, "We've Got The Whole World In Our Hands," focused our minds on what we can do to raise awareness about climate change within our community.

We decided there is power in numbers, so we have joined forces with a number of eco-partners, including US based Kiwi Magazine, committed to promoting a natural, organic way of life for families; The Green Parent, the UK's leading green lifestyle magazine, and Roots & Shoots, an international program of the Jane Goodall Institute dedicated to making positive change happen for our communities, for animals, and for the environment. Together with these partners, we have developed interactive "Go Barefoot, Go Global" web content for parents, teachers, and kids as an extension of Barefoot's over-arching goals of living green and celebrating diversity.

We are also donating a percentage of proceeds from sales of "Whole World" to a number of environmental organizations committed to global conservation."

'Going Green' is an ongoing process. We continue to work on ways to become more environmentally conscious in both our offices and in our personal lives.

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