February 20, 2008 | By Derek Weiler

Markets Initiative, the agency that lobbies publishers to go green, is hoping to bolster its efforts with a new report released this month. Based on a survey conducted by consulting firm Pollara late last year, the report highlights several stats that MI says show increasing consumer concern over environmental issues.

To wit: 66% of Canadians says they would pay more for books that use environmentally friendly paper, while 72% of Canadians look more favourably on books that do so. There's been a big upsurge in the amount of concern, says MI executive director Nicole Rycroft, also pointing to an increased level of sophistication on consumers parts.

One question that was not included in the final report was whether consumers had altered a purchasing choice in favour of a product seen to be more environmentally friendly. According to Rycroft, 56% of respondents said they had, and a quarter of those respondents had done so three times or more.

The report, entitled Finding Integrity in the Eco-Paper Market, also warns of greenwashing, in which companies overstate their environmental practices. According to the survey, 78% of Canadians feel that companies are often guilty of this. Rycroft concedes that this is a bigger problem in other sectors than in the book industry; the report singles out environment-themed magazine issues that are printed on glossy paper. Of course, we can all be doing more, Rycroft adds.

To that end, MI will now be pursuing in earnest green commitments from the educational publishing sector, while also seeking to shore up its roster of trade publishers. Currently, says Rycroft, about 60% of Canadian trade publishers have signed on with MI by confirming that they have overarching policies in place, ranging from printing on Ancient Forest Friendly paper to more selective marketing campaigns to in-house paper efficiency. Obviously, we'd like all of the large publishers to be on board.

One big fish in the trade sector that MI has yet to land is HarperCollins Canada. Discussions there are ongoing, says Rycroft, though she's careful not to point fingers: Every company has their own unique circumstances.HarperCollins president David Kent could not be reached for comment, but publicity director Rob Firing notes that the house has printed several specific titles on post-consumer recycled paper.

Coach House Books, which prints its own titles in-house, is another firm to print only selectively on recycled paper. Senior editor Alana Wilcox says that while the press's uTOpia series is printed on Enviro paper, most titles are printed on Zephyr, mainly for aesthetic reasons: people call Zephyr Coach House paper.

The Canadian book trade has also been rocked by the rising value of domestic currency over the past several months, which makes MI's pitch potentially a little more challenging, admits Rycroft. If we had tried to introduce the initiative from scratch in this last six-month period, we would have run into significant resistance.

She argues, though, that such concerns are offset by more drops in prices for AFF paper, which becomes more economical as more publishers use it on a regular basis. Less and less is this seen as a new project, says Rycroft.

At least one small publisher agrees. The prices of the recycled paper have come down to the point that publishing on it is not prohibitive, says Cormorant Books publisher Marc Ct

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