Renard Press feels strongly that we cannot ignore our impact on the planet, so the following are the biggest areas we feel need addressing in the industry. This, our promise to our readers, outlines what we’re doing to look after our environment. If you have any questions, please do get in touch.
We’re proud to be able to say that we’re one of the UK’s only climate-positive publishers, meaning we take more carbon out of the air than we put in. You can find out more about this below. ↓
Packaging
Gone are the days of bubble-padded envelopes! In 2026, we’re all very aware of the single-use plastics in our lives – quite rightly, of course – so we use the more environmentally friendly cardboard ‘bookwrap mailers’ to send out our books to reviewers and customers, and we plant a tree for every order via our website.
Papers
Since we are committed to making beautiful physical objects, we do not print on recycled paper, which is of a lower quality (and often has a higher carbon footprint than virgin papers), but the papers we choose all have high sustainability credentials, and all materials are FSC® certified. Although European tree felling for book papers is often part of healthy forest management, nonetheless we calculate how many trees have been felled to produce our books, and we ensure they are replanted around the world, and we choose papers from mills which engage in eco activities like tree planting. We only work with UK-based printers who take their eco responsibilities seriously, and where their carbon emissions have not been mitigated we over-offset them to make sure we’re giving back.
Stock
Publishing is often referred to as a ‘game of risk’, since it takes a lot of experience and an educated guess to work out how many books to print. Often publishers print in huge volumes, but then have to pulp the books – we maintain a slimmer stock so that we can avoid pulping books, and our distributor uses carbon-neutral delivery options for sending stock to bookshops. For bookshop customers overseas, we work with local printers in their area to ensure we’re printing locally and not using air freight.
Utilities
A slightly more obvious way in which we can measure our carbon footprint is in the energy we use – which is why Renard computers run on 100% renewable energy, and the heating, when we need it, uses 100% carbon-neutral gas. Our website host is Krystal, a B-Corp that runs on 100% renewables. We use our platform to impress our eco responsibilities on those we work with, and we choose our suppliers based on their climate commitments, investing in green infrastructure.
CLIMATE-POSITIVE PUBLISHING
There is no denying the climate crisis, and we all have a part to play in fixing the problem.
Renard is proud to be one of the UK’s first climate-positive publishers, which means we take more carbon out of the air than we put in.
• We reduce our emissions, we use green energy, we work with suppliers with green credentials and we cut out waste in our supply chain and production
• We calculate the carbon that has not been offset by a supplier and doubly offset it using gold-standard schemes
• We print locally – all our books are printed in the UK; or, for bookshops in other countries, we partner with local printers to avoid air freight
• We are part of several industry sustainability action groups, and knowledge-share with others to drive change
• We pay attention to the footprint of our digital operations, choosing to work with planet-first carbon-neutral B Corp Krystal for our website hosting.
• We replant trees that have been felled to make our books and choose the most eco materials available
• We plant a tree for every order we receive via our website, creating a forest with Ecologi
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
We are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. Launched in collaboration with the International Publishers Association, the Compact is designed to inspire action among publishers and aims to accelerate progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Signatories aspire to develop sustainable practices and act as champions of the SDGs during the Decade of Action (2020–2030), publishing books and journals that will help inform, develop, and inspire action in that direction.
In signing the Compact we commit to actively promoting and publishing on themes represented by the Sustainable Development Goals, and we will help to spread the word about and encourage adoption of the SDGs among those we work with.