March 19, 2025 • 24 mins
đź“š How To Be An Earth-Conscious Author
“Want to finally publish your book and start making money from it? Download my FREE 5-Day Nonfiction Book Marketing Challenge here:http://authornation.online/promotion.”
Join host Melody Ann and sustainability expert John Pabon (author of The Great Greenwashing) as they tackle the publishing industry’s environmental impact and share actionable steps for being an earth-conscious author.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
💬 Join the Conversation: What’s your first step toward being an earth-conscious author? Comment below and then read the full shownotes at How To Be An Earth-Conscious Author - Author Nation.
#SustainablePublishing #EcoFriendlyAuthor #GreenWriting #ClimateAction
“Want to finally publish your book and start making money from it? Download my FREE 5-Day Nonfiction Book Marketing Challenge here:http://authornation.online/promotion.”
Join host Melody Ann and sustainability expert John Pabon (author of The Great Greenwashing) as they tackle the publishing industry’s environmental impact and share actionable steps for being an earth-conscious author.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
- 📉 Publishing’s Hidden Footprint: The industry cuts 32M trees/year and emits 40M+ tons of CO₂ (equal to Portugal’s annual emissions!).
- 🌿 Eco-Friendly Book Marketing Tips: Opt for hybrid models (e-books/audiobooks) and partner with publishers using recycled materials or carbon-neutral printing.
- 🚫 Avoid Greenwashing: Scrutinize publishers’ sustainability claims—demand transparency over vague buzzwords like “eco-friendly” or “green.”
- 📱 Amplify Your Impact: Use platforms like TikTok to share eco-conscious messaging (e.g., #SustainablePublishing) and support creators like cli-fi pioneer Jeanille Hilton.
💬 Join the Conversation: What’s your first step toward being an earth-conscious author? Comment below and then read the full shownotes at How To Be An Earth-Conscious Author - Author Nation.
#SustainablePublishing #EcoFriendlyAuthor #GreenWriting #ClimateAction
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Author Nations. Today we are talking about the
environmental footprint of the publishing industry and how we can
make a difference with our choices. I'm your host, Melody Anne,
and I'm here to guide you towards actionable instrights and
insights and strategies that will help you succeed as an
author while changing the world. You can go ahead and
(00:30):
visit author Nation dot online to access a treasure trove
of resources just for you. So whether you are sipping
your morning coffee or winding down after a long day,
settle in and let me introduce our guest. John Pabone
is a sustainability author, consultant and content creator. Over his
(00:50):
twenty year career, he has had the privilege of working
with the United Nations, McKinsey, ac Nielsen, and as a
consultant with are the world's largest sustainability focused business network.
He is the founder of fulcrim Strategic Advisor's Chair of
the Conference Boards ASIA Sustainability leaders Council, and advises the
(01:14):
UN on issues of Internet governance or Internet governance and greenwashing.
John is also the author of Sustainability for the rest
of Us, Your No Bullshit Five Point Plan for saving
the planet and the great greenwashing, how brands, governments, and
influencers are lying to you. Let's welcome John. Hello, John,
(01:39):
thank you so much for joining us today. I really
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
No, thank you for having me. Looking forward to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yes, me too. So you've you've been over two decades
in sustainability. So can you just you know what inspired
this journey and how did it lead to writing books? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Absolutely so. Getting into sustainability was sorta of an accident.
I think back when, back in my day, sustainability folks
didn't come out of school with degrees or have a
real focus on things. It was sort of for me
an opportune visit to Shanghai. So I was living in
New York at the time, and I went to Shanghai
(02:18):
just on a little bit of vacation. Came back to
New York during the height of the global recession, and
by this point I had been working with the UN
and in the consulting sector with big companies, and I realized,
oh gosh, it's not the best place to be in
New York during the height of the global recession. Let's
go to Shanghai and give it a go. But what
I had to do when I moved there is figure
out what do I do with all of this public
(02:39):
sector knowledge and experience in a very commercial city like Shanghai.
So I fell into sustainability. In my part of the
sustainability universe is really helping private sector companies be better,
do better, have better operations and strategy. So sort of
that mixture of the public and the private sector and
the rest is kind of in history.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, amazing. So you've worked with government, You've worked with business,
you've worked in education and so, and then you worked
with the United Nations. So how did all of those
different perspectives shape your perspective on sustainability and how has
it affected what you do now?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah. So I'm sure if you asked the therapists they
would be able to pick this apart and why I'm
sort of in this space and my approach to pragmatic
effective altruism. But for me, I think the biggest piece
of shaping how I approach the world of sustainability and
doing better was really my work and experience in the
developing world. And the way I tend to talk about
(03:41):
this is it's very different the work we do in
the developing world versus the developed world like the EU
or the US, where there is sometimes more of an
academic conversation around sustainability. But in the developing world, people
have to roll up their sleeves and get really dirty.
I've been in and out of more factories, and I
care to remember your face with the impact of things
like climate change, pollution, et cetera day in and day out.
(04:04):
So it's a very different perspective, and that's really shaped
how I approach my own brand of sustainability and what
I do, which is primarily focused on helping people. So
the environmental side of things, the hugging the trees, saving
the polar veris, is absolutely important, but I leave that
to the activists and the scientists. I care more about
the impact of all of this on individual human beings.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, thank you. And so because I'm a linguist, I
need to ask you what you mean by greenwashing so
that we all you know, so we're all working off
the same definition. It's a very linguist thing of me
to do.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, and it's a very important thing because even when
we think about sustainability, if I ask five people to
define that, I'm going to get one hundred different answers,
So I'll start with that one first. So when I
say sustainability, for anybody listening and watching, sustainability isn't just
the green side of things there is. It's essentially an
umbrella term for anything that builds a better future for
the planet or people. So environment it has the social element,
(05:02):
and it also has a governance element, so regulations, operations, strategy,
and communications when it comes to greenwashing, so greenwashing is
the practice of primarily corporations but also individuals and governments
wrapping themselves in the language of sustainability, saying they're doing
good things for the people and for the planet, when
(05:22):
the truth may not be entirely altruistic. So some of
that comes across as outright lies we're doing good things
when they're actually not. Some of it is miscommunication or
misinterpretation or sometimes fluffy language. It's the use of centure language,
it's the use of semiotics, which is the science of
symbols to denote meaning. But all of that could be
(05:47):
telling the truth, but nine times out of ten it's
usually harboring something a little less altruistic under the service.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah exactly, thank you. All right, So now we've kind
of got our terms decided. I want to talk about
publishing greenwashing tactics in the publishing world. So what are
the kinds of things we should be looking out for
as authors trying to get our books published and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Absolutely, so, one of the fortunate things is there is
not a lot of greenwashing in the publishing industry, which
is a great thing. It's what we want to see.
That is because of sort of the size of the industry.
And yes, publishing is massive, absolutely, but I don't think,
especially in publishing, there is that channel or need or
mechanism should be greenwashing for consumers or certainly for authors
(06:38):
that work with large publishing or small publishing houses. That
isn't to say there aren't issues in the publishing industry,
which I'm sure we'll get into in a second. But luckily,
when authors go out to look for a potential publisher
or an agent, or even if they publish themselves, they
should not really be outwardly worried about greenwashing. They should
really focus on the writing that they need to do.
And we can talk absolutely about the specific things that
(07:01):
authors should be doing to help us amplify our amplify
our voices. As sustainability professionals.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
No, I love that. That's a great topic. So in
your book The Great green Washing, you kind of delve
into how brands and influencers mislead consumers. So are you
not seeing that in the publishing industry.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
No, certainly not the green washing side of things. So
the greenwashing is just that outward communication of you know,
we're doing good, but we're really not. I I'm going
to guess that eventually the publishing industry will catch up
and we'll start to do that. I hope it doesn't,
but I think just the trajectory of where business is
going now there's a lot more green washing post COVID
than there was before that that will start to creep
(07:42):
into the publishing industry certainly, but at this point it
hasn't happened, which is a great thing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, although the publishing industry does have a large carbon footprint, right,
there's deforestation, there's energy use, there's so much waste in
the industry, not just of paper during production. But you
know a lot of books, especially for self published authors,
are published are our soul on consignment and so a
(08:09):
store will say, hey, we'll take a hundred of those,
or you know, a serial of a Bundan you know,
let's say Barnes and Noble, they have many stores. They'll say,
we'll take a hundred and we'll put like, you know,
five each and so many stores, and then they don't sell,
and Barnes and Nobles said, well, they're on consignment, so
we're just going to send them back, at which point
(08:29):
the author can pay for them to be destroyed or
pay for them to be shipped to them and they
can figure out what to do. So there's actually quite
a lot of waste. So from your perspective, how could
authors make their work more eco friendly? Without of course,
you know, because authors want to sell books, so like,
without saying don't sell books, you know, how can authors
(08:52):
make their work more eco friendly? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Absolutely, And I'll add a few statistics that I conveniently
had laying around around the impact of the publishing industry.
I spoke at a publishing conference in London late last year,
so I had these in hand. So thank you for
bringing it up, because it's important people know kind of
the impact of the publishing industry. People see books, they
attribute it to trees and paper and they get it.
(09:18):
But I was pretty shocked by this so when it
comes to pulp and paper, book publishing is the third
largest industrial greenhouse gas emitter in the world as a sector,
so massive impact. In the US, the industry cuts down
thirty two million trees a year, and about a third
of those are killed for the production of books that
people only read once. Tree felling makes up less than
(09:39):
half of a book's environmental impact. The rest comes from
the production, so it's not just the trees making the paper.
It's also, like you mentioned, the consignment, the shipping back
and forth, everything that goes in line with that as well,
and globally, the production process itself emits more than forty
million metric tons of CO two and that's on par
with what Portugal emits every year. So it is a massive,
(10:00):
massive contributor to environmental pollution. What authors really need to
be considering, especially going forward, And I'll be perfectly transparent
and honest with everybody watching and listening with yourself. When
I looked for a publisher in the environmental impact of
the publishing house was not top of mind for me.
And I'm somebody in the space, so I think, and
(10:21):
again this is these are things I realized a little
bit later. So certainly anybody listening and watching to this
should have it front of mind. Now of what processes
does your potential publishing house have in place to address these?
Are they ignoring these things? Because these are big issues
that the large publishing houses they absolutely know about. So
if they're not at least saying, oh, we have we're
(10:43):
thinking about this, then they're probably lying. So for smaller
publishing houses, they may not have as big of an impact,
but I think the beauty of a smaller publishing house
is that they are much more nimble and they can
address these things probably larger or quicker than a larger
publishing house can do because of that ability to shift
into pivots. So these are just simple considerations. And what
(11:03):
I don't want to do as an author, for authors
listening and watching is to have them thinking, oh god,
I have to make all these considerations and I can't
focus on what I want to do, which is my writing.
So I don't want people to be put off by
the process. But these are things that especially if you
want to position yourself as an eco activist type of
an author, if you're working in that sort of a genre,
(11:25):
or if you just care in general, these are just
small considerations amongst the many other considerations you have to
take when you're looking for a publishing house, self publishing,
or a smaller publishing house as well.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, well there are so many, you know, without thinking
about your footprint, there are already so many considerations, right,
So I understand how, you know, as especially a new
author is coming to this, how it's challenging to add
that to the equation because there's already you know, do
(11:58):
I self published? Do I traditional to a high do
I community? Do I kickstart? Do I? You know, so
I get it, so one of the top you know,
what are the top three considerations?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So when it comes to kind of the environmental impact
of what an author is doing, again, the first one
top of mind for me is just to make sure
whoever you're approaching, if you're going the traditional route, is
you know, do a bit of your own research, which
everybody should always do. And do they even address this stuff?
Is it somewhere on the website where they at least
make a nod toward it. That's that's part one. Part
(12:29):
two is what type of model are you going to
go about doing? Or yourself publishing or you're doing digital
like you mentioned there's so many different options. What are
you actually doing and what impact does that have? Where
you know, we talked about the traditional model of printing
out a book, consignment, et cetera. That has an impact,
but the digital approach also has an impact. The community
based approach has an impact to So what type of
(12:50):
an impact are you going to have and are you
comfortable with that impact as well? I think those are
the two biggest considerations. I don't want to scare people
away from publishing, especially given, like you said, everything else
that we need to consider as authors, especially new authors,
which I know is quite a daunting task right out
of the.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Gate, overwhelming exactly. Okay, so I'm so glad you brought
up digital. Now. I love a good book, right, I
love to hold a book. I love the tactile experience
of a book. And yet, yes, right, as a consumer,
who cares? I'm aware of the impact, and so I've been,
you know, thinking, Okay, so my fiction. I do more
(13:28):
audio books recently, I try to do more digital books,
but I also really like to underline things, so you know,
it's it's a mix. So let's talk digital. So, because
digital seems like this potential or audio they seem like
these potential solutions to at least some of these issues.
So what role do you think digital can play and
(13:50):
are there drawbacks to digital?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, so anything with technology, anything that use the Internet
that has an environmental impact as well, which a lot
of well it's kind of out of side, out of
mind sometimes, but it uses resources like everything else does.
So just going digital does not inherently mean that you
are being environmentally friendly. I think the positive side of
the technology sector versus maybe the publishing sector is the
(14:15):
technology sector it knows and is openly addressing and trying
to improve its environmental impact. So by being part of
that movement, you can also be a little bit more
comfortable that at least there's considered action happening versus the
publishing industry, which is doing stuff, but maybe not nearly
as much as digital. So certainly, from an perspective, digital
(14:35):
offers so many more opportunities than maybe the written word
and a published book printed book does, So there's that opportunity.
Audio offers up entirely new channels of communication. It offers
accessibility as well for those that maybe can't access, you know,
a physical book in a traditional way. So there are absolutely,
so many positives going down the digital route. I think
(14:59):
the the most elegant model, especially for new authors, is
to have a mixture of both the printed and the digital,
and given platforms exist today, luckily that makes it a
little bit easier than maybe it was ten or fifteen
years ago. But there are absolutely considerations for people to
keep in mind when they go down the digital route.
It's not the silver bullet of being the most eco friendly,
(15:23):
but certainly offers a lot of opportunities for authors and
for readers as well. Yeah, or listeners of its audio.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, I still call them readers even though they're listening
to I just I either use the word audience or
I use the word readers. It's you know, it's and
I feel like I'm reading a book. If someone's reading
it to me, I'm still reading it. So this is
a really interesting conversation, and you can learn more about
John at John Pabone dot com. So that's a great
(15:53):
place to go and get more information about what John
does and about how to live a sustainable life, although
as we know, John often works with larger organizations than
just one author at a time. I want to ask
I want to talk about the future of publishing a
little bit and what you might what you where you
(16:13):
think we're going or where you think we should go.
But I want to ask you one question before we
get there, and I hope I'm not opening a can
of worms. But there's always a discussion around whose responsibility
is it. Is it the consumers responsibility or is it
you know, large corporation responsibility because consumers, yes, we can
(16:34):
choose who we buy from, but in the end, we
don't fully dictate the choices the corporations are making. So
can you just speak a little bit on your your
take on that that very controversial.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Topic, massive massive caniforms. No, it's it's actually for me,
it's it's quite straightforward. So the way I look at
the segments that make an impact or a potential impact
on on the plan and for people, you have individuals.
So for a long time throughout the modern environmental movement,
it really has been put onto individuals consumers to be
(17:09):
making the lion's share of the difference that the bottom
up people power approach, that's one group. You have governments,
which are an entirely different group, the ones that pull
the regulatory levers. We know very well that governments, with
a few exceptions, are really not doing what they're supposed
to be doing when it comes to saving the planet.
So they've sort of washed their hands of this in
the hopes of being re elected. And that's everywhere around
(17:32):
the world, So certainly there's that. But then the private
sector corporations in my view, and the reason I do
work with them, is because corporations, a, they got us
into this mess, so it should be the responsibility to
get us out of this mess. But they have access
to resources capital that individuals absolutely do not. Governments are
(17:54):
not willing to use. So the lion share of the
work should be sitting with the private sector to be
making that different. Now I get pushed back a lot,
especially from my peers in the sustainability world, saying no,
you should be doing the people power approach, and I say, well,
given the scale of the issues, I don't want to
dissuade anybody from doing the things that they're already doing.
Please keep doing the amazing work that you're doing. But
(18:14):
the problems have gotten so big that it's not just
up to individuals anymore. What individuals can absolutely do to
make a massive difference, and this is something I would
have laughed if I heard it ten years ago, but
speak with your wallet. I don't know why it took
me so long to realize this. One of the silver
linings of the capitalist system that we're living within is
(18:35):
the corporations do respond to how people spend money. I've
seen at firsthand with the work that I do. So
if you want to make absolute change, if you just
want to do one small, tiny thing in your day
to day, be smarter about how you spend your money.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, thank you so much, because this is a conversation
I actually have with people multiple times, and so this
was an opportunity for me to ask somebody who would
have a different perspective and have more knowledge on it.
So thank you very much. Right, I want to talk
about the future of publishing. You know, feel free to
tell us where you'd like to see it go, or
(19:10):
where you think it'll go, or you know where you'd
hope it'll go. But I just want to talk a
little bit about the future of publishing.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, the especially when we look at it through the
lens of sort of sustainability or ecoactivism. There's so many
more voices putting this information out there, whether it's through
kind of academic texts, which that's a personal help for me.
I would never make an academic text, but I know
there's an audience for that, or people that are just
really using massive amounts of creativity to help get the
(19:39):
message out. This isn't in the way of sort of
banging people over the head with you need to be
better and save the planet, but just really interesting ways
to get the conversation shifting to something that is more
awareness raising. But I think we're beyond awareness raising. I
think if you don't know something's happening in your heads
in the sand, it's more what do I do about
all of this? So I think about people like JOm
(20:00):
Via Hilton is a great example. She's sort of pioneered
this genre of what she calls cli fi, which is
climate fiction, which is not dystopian. I love a good
dystopian novel, but she's trying to be a little bit
more positive with where the future is going. Amy Vesterbelt
is an amazing investigative journalist that does a lot for
major major publications and magazines around the world talking about
(20:21):
sort of where we are what we can do about
it from a climate perspective, and a great person to
use as a bit of a resource individuals online too.
I spend a lot of time in the social media
space on TikTok and Instagram. Metal and Pendleton is a
great example of someone that is really using her platform
of millions of people to talk about the social aspects
(20:42):
of sustainability in a way that is really approachable. So
I think that's where we're seeing things happen. We're seeing,
especially in the sustainability space, a move away from the
academic Ivory Tower presentation of sustainability into something that people
can look at say hey, I can relate to that
which we've been really bad that for forty years, and
I can actually do something to make a difference, which
(21:03):
is sort of where we all want to be. We
all want to be able to make a difference. I
think the thing that myself and my peers have done
a terrible job at is giving that information of how
people can actually make a difference, not just scaring the
hell out of them. We don't want to be scaring
the hell out of people anymore. There's enough of that
fair enough.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And talking about social media, we can find you on
TikTok right at John A. Pabone. It's on the screen
in front of you, and I will also put it
in the show notes along with John's website. John, how
can people get in touch with you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Absolutely through any of those websites. TikTok is a great resource.
I know it's problematic in the US right now, but
it's a great resource for sort of long form content
but also engaging if people have questions. I know a
lot of the work that I do leads to a
lot of questions from people that sometimes go unanswered. But
I definitely use that platform like Madeline does, to help
(21:55):
and serve as a resource for people, because otherwise, what
am I doing if not being a resource to help
people make a difference.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Exactly, John, thank you so much for joining us today.
Do you have any final words something we've missed you
want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I think the only final thing I'll keep this brief
is for anybody listening and watching you probably thinking, Okay, well,
what can I do in the immediate to actually make
a difference? And this all seems so overwhelming. I'm despondent,
and I know there are a lot of doomass messages
out there that are being propagated from organizations and lobbying
groups that are using it as greenwashing. But for anybody
listening and watching, really remember that you don't have to
(22:31):
do it all. You don't have to be perfect. Any
little bit that you do that moves the needle in
the right direction. Whatever your passion point is, whatever you
can contribute to, whether that's a special skill that you have, financially, whatever,
time wise, whatever it might be, focus on that and
do it, and don't feel overwhelmed to think that you're
an army of one in the future of the world
rests on your shoulders. We all have a part to
play and there are billions of us in this little
(22:52):
army trying to make a better future.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Thank you so much, John, I really appreciate it, and
I will in the show notes I will put in
John's information. But John has also mentioned a few other people.
I will make sure to add them to the show
notes so you in the in the video and on
the podcast, so that you can also find them, because
John has said they are the right people to listen to,
(23:18):
and we're always looking for you know who, you know,
who should we really be listening to on this topic.
So thank you for that, John, and thank you everyone
for joining us today on Authoration Interviews. I hope this
conversation has inspired you, not frightened you. I think that
we can take step by step by step. I always
(23:39):
talk about best for authors, right, writing a book is
like climbing a mountain, and it's not you know, you
don't just run up to the top on day one.
There's step by step, by step by step. And I
feel that, you know, making this planet a hospitable place
for all creatures is you know, kind of the same thing, right,
It's like step by step, by step by step, not
(24:00):
an overwhelming Friday to the top today. So I hope
this has really helped you with that. Don't forget to
visit authonation online for your resources, and of course I'm
always looking for your feedback and your support. So if
you've enjoyed this episode, send it off to someone you
know who will be able to gain knowledge and inspiration
(24:21):
from it. And don't forget to comment and let us
know what you're thinking, because your participation continues to help
us deliver insights and the tools that you need. So
keep writing, keep creating, and continue sharing your unique stories
with the world.
Welcome to Author Nations. Today we are talking about the
environmental footprint of the publishing industry and how we can
make a difference with our choices. I'm your host, Melody Anne,
and I'm here to guide you towards actionable instrights and
insights and strategies that will help you succeed as an
author while changing the world. You can go ahead and
(00:30):
visit author Nation dot online to access a treasure trove
of resources just for you. So whether you are sipping
your morning coffee or winding down after a long day,
settle in and let me introduce our guest. John Pabone
is a sustainability author, consultant and content creator. Over his
(00:50):
twenty year career, he has had the privilege of working
with the United Nations, McKinsey, ac Nielsen, and as a
consultant with are the world's largest sustainability focused business network.
He is the founder of fulcrim Strategic Advisor's Chair of
the Conference Boards ASIA Sustainability leaders Council, and advises the
(01:14):
UN on issues of Internet governance or Internet governance and greenwashing.
John is also the author of Sustainability for the rest
of Us, Your No Bullshit Five Point Plan for saving
the planet and the great greenwashing, how brands, governments, and
influencers are lying to you. Let's welcome John. Hello, John,
(01:39):
thank you so much for joining us today. I really
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
No, thank you for having me. Looking forward to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yes, me too. So you've you've been over two decades
in sustainability. So can you just you know what inspired
this journey and how did it lead to writing books? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Absolutely so. Getting into sustainability was sorta of an accident.
I think back when, back in my day, sustainability folks
didn't come out of school with degrees or have a
real focus on things. It was sort of for me
an opportune visit to Shanghai. So I was living in
New York at the time, and I went to Shanghai
(02:18):
just on a little bit of vacation. Came back to
New York during the height of the global recession, and
by this point I had been working with the UN
and in the consulting sector with big companies, and I realized,
oh gosh, it's not the best place to be in
New York during the height of the global recession. Let's
go to Shanghai and give it a go. But what
I had to do when I moved there is figure
out what do I do with all of this public
(02:39):
sector knowledge and experience in a very commercial city like Shanghai.
So I fell into sustainability. In my part of the
sustainability universe is really helping private sector companies be better,
do better, have better operations and strategy. So sort of
that mixture of the public and the private sector and
the rest is kind of in history.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, amazing. So you've worked with government, You've worked with business,
you've worked in education and so, and then you worked
with the United Nations. So how did all of those
different perspectives shape your perspective on sustainability and how has
it affected what you do now?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah. So I'm sure if you asked the therapists they
would be able to pick this apart and why I'm
sort of in this space and my approach to pragmatic
effective altruism. But for me, I think the biggest piece
of shaping how I approach the world of sustainability and
doing better was really my work and experience in the
developing world. And the way I tend to talk about
(03:41):
this is it's very different the work we do in
the developing world versus the developed world like the EU
or the US, where there is sometimes more of an
academic conversation around sustainability. But in the developing world, people
have to roll up their sleeves and get really dirty.
I've been in and out of more factories, and I
care to remember your face with the impact of things
like climate change, pollution, et cetera day in and day out.
(04:04):
So it's a very different perspective, and that's really shaped
how I approach my own brand of sustainability and what
I do, which is primarily focused on helping people. So
the environmental side of things, the hugging the trees, saving
the polar veris, is absolutely important, but I leave that
to the activists and the scientists. I care more about
the impact of all of this on individual human beings.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, thank you. And so because I'm a linguist, I
need to ask you what you mean by greenwashing so
that we all you know, so we're all working off
the same definition. It's a very linguist thing of me
to do.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, and it's a very important thing because even when
we think about sustainability, if I ask five people to
define that, I'm going to get one hundred different answers,
So I'll start with that one first. So when I
say sustainability, for anybody listening and watching, sustainability isn't just
the green side of things there is. It's essentially an
umbrella term for anything that builds a better future for
the planet or people. So environment it has the social element,
(05:02):
and it also has a governance element, so regulations, operations, strategy,
and communications when it comes to greenwashing, so greenwashing is
the practice of primarily corporations but also individuals and governments
wrapping themselves in the language of sustainability, saying they're doing
good things for the people and for the planet, when
(05:22):
the truth may not be entirely altruistic. So some of
that comes across as outright lies we're doing good things
when they're actually not. Some of it is miscommunication or
misinterpretation or sometimes fluffy language. It's the use of centure language,
it's the use of semiotics, which is the science of
symbols to denote meaning. But all of that could be
(05:47):
telling the truth, but nine times out of ten it's
usually harboring something a little less altruistic under the service.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah exactly, thank you. All right, So now we've kind
of got our terms decided. I want to talk about
publishing greenwashing tactics in the publishing world. So what are
the kinds of things we should be looking out for
as authors trying to get our books published and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Absolutely, so, one of the fortunate things is there is
not a lot of greenwashing in the publishing industry, which
is a great thing. It's what we want to see.
That is because of sort of the size of the industry.
And yes, publishing is massive, absolutely, but I don't think,
especially in publishing, there is that channel or need or
mechanism should be greenwashing for consumers or certainly for authors
(06:38):
that work with large publishing or small publishing houses. That
isn't to say there aren't issues in the publishing industry,
which I'm sure we'll get into in a second. But luckily,
when authors go out to look for a potential publisher
or an agent, or even if they publish themselves, they
should not really be outwardly worried about greenwashing. They should
really focus on the writing that they need to do.
And we can talk absolutely about the specific things that
(07:01):
authors should be doing to help us amplify our amplify
our voices. As sustainability professionals.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
No, I love that. That's a great topic. So in
your book The Great green Washing, you kind of delve
into how brands and influencers mislead consumers. So are you
not seeing that in the publishing industry.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
No, certainly not the green washing side of things. So
the greenwashing is just that outward communication of you know,
we're doing good, but we're really not. I I'm going
to guess that eventually the publishing industry will catch up
and we'll start to do that. I hope it doesn't,
but I think just the trajectory of where business is
going now there's a lot more green washing post COVID
than there was before that that will start to creep
(07:42):
into the publishing industry certainly, but at this point it
hasn't happened, which is a great thing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, although the publishing industry does have a large carbon footprint, right,
there's deforestation, there's energy use, there's so much waste in
the industry, not just of paper during production. But you
know a lot of books, especially for self published authors,
are published are our soul on consignment and so a
(08:09):
store will say, hey, we'll take a hundred of those,
or you know, a serial of a Bundan you know,
let's say Barnes and Noble, they have many stores. They'll say,
we'll take a hundred and we'll put like, you know,
five each and so many stores, and then they don't sell,
and Barnes and Nobles said, well, they're on consignment, so
we're just going to send them back, at which point
(08:29):
the author can pay for them to be destroyed or
pay for them to be shipped to them and they
can figure out what to do. So there's actually quite
a lot of waste. So from your perspective, how could
authors make their work more eco friendly? Without of course,
you know, because authors want to sell books, so like,
without saying don't sell books, you know, how can authors
(08:52):
make their work more eco friendly? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Absolutely, And I'll add a few statistics that I conveniently
had laying around around the impact of the publishing industry.
I spoke at a publishing conference in London late last year,
so I had these in hand. So thank you for
bringing it up, because it's important people know kind of
the impact of the publishing industry. People see books, they
attribute it to trees and paper and they get it.
(09:18):
But I was pretty shocked by this so when it
comes to pulp and paper, book publishing is the third
largest industrial greenhouse gas emitter in the world as a sector,
so massive impact. In the US, the industry cuts down
thirty two million trees a year, and about a third
of those are killed for the production of books that
people only read once. Tree felling makes up less than
(09:39):
half of a book's environmental impact. The rest comes from
the production, so it's not just the trees making the paper.
It's also, like you mentioned, the consignment, the shipping back
and forth, everything that goes in line with that as well,
and globally, the production process itself emits more than forty
million metric tons of CO two and that's on par
with what Portugal emits every year. So it is a massive,
(10:00):
massive contributor to environmental pollution. What authors really need to
be considering, especially going forward, And I'll be perfectly transparent
and honest with everybody watching and listening with yourself. When
I looked for a publisher in the environmental impact of
the publishing house was not top of mind for me.
And I'm somebody in the space, so I think, and
(10:21):
again this is these are things I realized a little
bit later. So certainly anybody listening and watching to this
should have it front of mind. Now of what processes
does your potential publishing house have in place to address these?
Are they ignoring these things? Because these are big issues
that the large publishing houses they absolutely know about. So
if they're not at least saying, oh, we have we're
(10:43):
thinking about this, then they're probably lying. So for smaller
publishing houses, they may not have as big of an impact,
but I think the beauty of a smaller publishing house
is that they are much more nimble and they can
address these things probably larger or quicker than a larger
publishing house can do because of that ability to shift
into pivots. So these are just simple considerations. And what
(11:03):
I don't want to do as an author, for authors
listening and watching is to have them thinking, oh god,
I have to make all these considerations and I can't
focus on what I want to do, which is my writing.
So I don't want people to be put off by
the process. But these are things that especially if you
want to position yourself as an eco activist type of
an author, if you're working in that sort of a genre,
(11:25):
or if you just care in general, these are just
small considerations amongst the many other considerations you have to
take when you're looking for a publishing house, self publishing,
or a smaller publishing house as well.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, well there are so many, you know, without thinking
about your footprint, there are already so many considerations, right,
So I understand how, you know, as especially a new
author is coming to this, how it's challenging to add
that to the equation because there's already you know, do
(11:58):
I self published? Do I traditional to a high do
I community? Do I kickstart? Do I? You know, so
I get it, so one of the top you know,
what are the top three considerations?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So when it comes to kind of the environmental impact
of what an author is doing, again, the first one
top of mind for me is just to make sure
whoever you're approaching, if you're going the traditional route, is
you know, do a bit of your own research, which
everybody should always do. And do they even address this stuff?
Is it somewhere on the website where they at least
make a nod toward it. That's that's part one. Part
(12:29):
two is what type of model are you going to
go about doing? Or yourself publishing or you're doing digital
like you mentioned there's so many different options. What are
you actually doing and what impact does that have? Where
you know, we talked about the traditional model of printing
out a book, consignment, et cetera. That has an impact,
but the digital approach also has an impact. The community
based approach has an impact to So what type of
(12:50):
an impact are you going to have and are you
comfortable with that impact as well? I think those are
the two biggest considerations. I don't want to scare people
away from publishing, especially given, like you said, everything else
that we need to consider as authors, especially new authors,
which I know is quite a daunting task right out
of the.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Gate, overwhelming exactly. Okay, so I'm so glad you brought
up digital. Now. I love a good book, right, I
love to hold a book. I love the tactile experience
of a book. And yet, yes, right, as a consumer,
who cares? I'm aware of the impact, and so I've been,
you know, thinking, Okay, so my fiction. I do more
(13:28):
audio books recently, I try to do more digital books,
but I also really like to underline things, so you know,
it's it's a mix. So let's talk digital. So, because
digital seems like this potential or audio they seem like
these potential solutions to at least some of these issues.
So what role do you think digital can play and
(13:50):
are there drawbacks to digital?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, so anything with technology, anything that use the Internet
that has an environmental impact as well, which a lot
of well it's kind of out of side, out of
mind sometimes, but it uses resources like everything else does.
So just going digital does not inherently mean that you
are being environmentally friendly. I think the positive side of
the technology sector versus maybe the publishing sector is the
(14:15):
technology sector it knows and is openly addressing and trying
to improve its environmental impact. So by being part of
that movement, you can also be a little bit more
comfortable that at least there's considered action happening versus the
publishing industry, which is doing stuff, but maybe not nearly
as much as digital. So certainly, from an perspective, digital
(14:35):
offers so many more opportunities than maybe the written word
and a published book printed book does, So there's that opportunity.
Audio offers up entirely new channels of communication. It offers
accessibility as well for those that maybe can't access, you know,
a physical book in a traditional way. So there are absolutely,
so many positives going down the digital route. I think
(14:59):
the the most elegant model, especially for new authors, is
to have a mixture of both the printed and the digital,
and given platforms exist today, luckily that makes it a
little bit easier than maybe it was ten or fifteen
years ago. But there are absolutely considerations for people to
keep in mind when they go down the digital route.
It's not the silver bullet of being the most eco friendly,
(15:23):
but certainly offers a lot of opportunities for authors and
for readers as well. Yeah, or listeners of its audio.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, I still call them readers even though they're listening
to I just I either use the word audience or
I use the word readers. It's you know, it's and
I feel like I'm reading a book. If someone's reading
it to me, I'm still reading it. So this is
a really interesting conversation, and you can learn more about
John at John Pabone dot com. So that's a great
(15:53):
place to go and get more information about what John
does and about how to live a sustainable life, although
as we know, John often works with larger organizations than
just one author at a time. I want to ask
I want to talk about the future of publishing a
little bit and what you might what you where you
(16:13):
think we're going or where you think we should go.
But I want to ask you one question before we
get there, and I hope I'm not opening a can
of worms. But there's always a discussion around whose responsibility
is it. Is it the consumers responsibility or is it
you know, large corporation responsibility because consumers, yes, we can
(16:34):
choose who we buy from, but in the end, we
don't fully dictate the choices the corporations are making. So
can you just speak a little bit on your your
take on that that very controversial.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Topic, massive massive caniforms. No, it's it's actually for me,
it's it's quite straightforward. So the way I look at
the segments that make an impact or a potential impact
on on the plan and for people, you have individuals.
So for a long time throughout the modern environmental movement,
it really has been put onto individuals consumers to be
(17:09):
making the lion's share of the difference that the bottom
up people power approach, that's one group. You have governments,
which are an entirely different group, the ones that pull
the regulatory levers. We know very well that governments, with
a few exceptions, are really not doing what they're supposed
to be doing when it comes to saving the planet.
So they've sort of washed their hands of this in
the hopes of being re elected. And that's everywhere around
(17:32):
the world, So certainly there's that. But then the private
sector corporations in my view, and the reason I do
work with them, is because corporations, a, they got us
into this mess, so it should be the responsibility to
get us out of this mess. But they have access
to resources capital that individuals absolutely do not. Governments are
(17:54):
not willing to use. So the lion share of the
work should be sitting with the private sector to be
making that different. Now I get pushed back a lot,
especially from my peers in the sustainability world, saying no,
you should be doing the people power approach, and I say, well,
given the scale of the issues, I don't want to
dissuade anybody from doing the things that they're already doing.
Please keep doing the amazing work that you're doing. But
(18:14):
the problems have gotten so big that it's not just
up to individuals anymore. What individuals can absolutely do to
make a massive difference, and this is something I would
have laughed if I heard it ten years ago, but
speak with your wallet. I don't know why it took
me so long to realize this. One of the silver
linings of the capitalist system that we're living within is
(18:35):
the corporations do respond to how people spend money. I've
seen at firsthand with the work that I do. So
if you want to make absolute change, if you just
want to do one small, tiny thing in your day
to day, be smarter about how you spend your money.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, thank you so much, because this is a conversation
I actually have with people multiple times, and so this
was an opportunity for me to ask somebody who would
have a different perspective and have more knowledge on it.
So thank you very much. Right, I want to talk
about the future of publishing. You know, feel free to
tell us where you'd like to see it go, or
(19:10):
where you think it'll go, or you know where you'd
hope it'll go. But I just want to talk a
little bit about the future of publishing.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, the especially when we look at it through the
lens of sort of sustainability or ecoactivism. There's so many
more voices putting this information out there, whether it's through
kind of academic texts, which that's a personal help for me.
I would never make an academic text, but I know
there's an audience for that, or people that are just
really using massive amounts of creativity to help get the
(19:39):
message out. This isn't in the way of sort of
banging people over the head with you need to be
better and save the planet, but just really interesting ways
to get the conversation shifting to something that is more
awareness raising. But I think we're beyond awareness raising. I
think if you don't know something's happening in your heads
in the sand, it's more what do I do about
all of this? So I think about people like JOm
(20:00):
Via Hilton is a great example. She's sort of pioneered
this genre of what she calls cli fi, which is
climate fiction, which is not dystopian. I love a good
dystopian novel, but she's trying to be a little bit
more positive with where the future is going. Amy Vesterbelt
is an amazing investigative journalist that does a lot for
major major publications and magazines around the world talking about
(20:21):
sort of where we are what we can do about
it from a climate perspective, and a great person to
use as a bit of a resource individuals online too.
I spend a lot of time in the social media
space on TikTok and Instagram. Metal and Pendleton is a
great example of someone that is really using her platform
of millions of people to talk about the social aspects
(20:42):
of sustainability in a way that is really approachable. So
I think that's where we're seeing things happen. We're seeing,
especially in the sustainability space, a move away from the
academic Ivory Tower presentation of sustainability into something that people
can look at say hey, I can relate to that
which we've been really bad that for forty years, and
I can actually do something to make a difference, which
(21:03):
is sort of where we all want to be. We
all want to be able to make a difference. I
think the thing that myself and my peers have done
a terrible job at is giving that information of how
people can actually make a difference, not just scaring the
hell out of them. We don't want to be scaring
the hell out of people anymore. There's enough of that
fair enough.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And talking about social media, we can find you on
TikTok right at John A. Pabone. It's on the screen
in front of you, and I will also put it
in the show notes along with John's website. John, how
can people get in touch with you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Absolutely through any of those websites. TikTok is a great resource.
I know it's problematic in the US right now, but
it's a great resource for sort of long form content
but also engaging if people have questions. I know a
lot of the work that I do leads to a
lot of questions from people that sometimes go unanswered. But
I definitely use that platform like Madeline does, to help
(21:55):
and serve as a resource for people, because otherwise, what
am I doing if not being a resource to help
people make a difference.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Exactly, John, thank you so much for joining us today.
Do you have any final words something we've missed you
want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I think the only final thing I'll keep this brief
is for anybody listening and watching you probably thinking, Okay, well,
what can I do in the immediate to actually make
a difference? And this all seems so overwhelming. I'm despondent,
and I know there are a lot of doomass messages
out there that are being propagated from organizations and lobbying
groups that are using it as greenwashing. But for anybody
listening and watching, really remember that you don't have to
(22:31):
do it all. You don't have to be perfect. Any
little bit that you do that moves the needle in
the right direction. Whatever your passion point is, whatever you
can contribute to, whether that's a special skill that you have, financially, whatever,
time wise, whatever it might be, focus on that and
do it, and don't feel overwhelmed to think that you're
an army of one in the future of the world
rests on your shoulders. We all have a part to
play and there are billions of us in this little
(22:52):
army trying to make a better future.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Thank you so much, John, I really appreciate it, and
I will in the show notes I will put in
John's information. But John has also mentioned a few other people.
I will make sure to add them to the show
notes so you in the in the video and on
the podcast, so that you can also find them, because
John has said they are the right people to listen to,
(23:18):
and we're always looking for you know who, you know,
who should we really be listening to on this topic.
So thank you for that, John, and thank you everyone
for joining us today on Authoration Interviews. I hope this
conversation has inspired you, not frightened you. I think that
we can take step by step by step. I always
(23:39):
talk about best for authors, right, writing a book is
like climbing a mountain, and it's not you know, you
don't just run up to the top on day one.
There's step by step, by step by step. And I
feel that, you know, making this planet a hospitable place
for all creatures is you know, kind of the same thing, right,
It's like step by step, by step by step, not
(24:00):
an overwhelming Friday to the top today. So I hope
this has really helped you with that. Don't forget to
visit authonation online for your resources, and of course I'm
always looking for your feedback and your support. So if
you've enjoyed this episode, send it off to someone you
know who will be able to gain knowledge and inspiration
(24:21):
from it. And don't forget to comment and let us
know what you're thinking, because your participation continues to help
us deliver insights and the tools that you need. So
keep writing, keep creating, and continue sharing your unique stories
with the world.
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