Pol.len Edicions
Pol·len Edicions
Pol·len Edicions is a cooperative publishing house specialised in publishing books of critical reflection on subjects such as social sciences, feminism or ecology. The cooperative has developed tools and a label to reduce the environmental footprint of books throughout their life cycle with the aim of bringing the publishing sector on board in this transition. Thus, Pol·len also offers a responsible publishing support service for de- sign, layout or printing management.
Field of activity
Editing
Work team
4 employees
City
Sant Cugat del Vallès
Good ecological practices
Pol.len has integrated the approach of reducing its ecological footprint in the entire production chain of its books. The approach is therefore global and concerns particularly purchases, waste and digital technologies.
On the global approach, the cooperative has put in place the following actions :
use a calculation tool for environmental indicators linked to the life cycle of books (BookDAPer), in order to integrate a global ecological approach (eco-design, choice of paper and reduction of waste, water, energy and consumption of raw materials, transport, waste, carbon footprint).
communicate on the carbon footprint of each book.
choose a printer with a good environmental management label (such as the “imprim vert” label in France)
In terms of purchases and waste:
print the books in the distribution territory
use recycled and/or FSC-certified paper, and produced as locally as possible (for example, between choosing a local paper or another one certified but far away, it is preferable to choose local because of the carbon footprint due to transportation).
use vegetable oil based inks.
apply eco-design practices.
do not use shrink wrap for books, plastic packaging, or plastic tape
On the digital side:
use digital rather than offset publishing for less than 400 copies.
What was the trigger?
The closing of El Tinter, a pioneer printer of responsible publishing, pushes its members and others to create in parallel the cooperative Pol-len Edicions, which was born in 2014. The development and sharing of good practices in favor of sustainable publishing is therefore a founding issue of Pol.len. At the same time, the publishing sector was mainly considering energy or transport savings in order to comply with ISO 14001 or EMAS and Pol-len saw the need to integrate and promote an integral vision of the ecological footprint. To this end, they participated in the development of BookDAPer, a tool for measuring the carbon footprint and resources used, in partnership with the Leitat technology center.
Recently, the cooperative has also participated in the creation of the Ecoedició Institute and the Llibre Ecoeditat label to verify and promote responsible practices within the editing sector.
Running the project
The 4 employees of the Pol.len cooperative are all involved in changing practices within the structure. As of 2018, the cooperative has appointed a referent employee in charge of organizing the improvement of ecoresponsible practices. To define this strategy, an annual work plan is carried out with an assigned budget
Keys of success
- benefit from the scientific expertise of the technological center Leitat, its support and knowledge of external funding in the framework of the European project for the creation of a tool to measure the carbon footprint (BookDAPer).
- benefit from exchanges of best practices with the Novoprint printing house and the founding partners of the Ecoedició Institute to keep up to date with the best practices in responsible publishing.
- be part of La Politja, a cooperative center in Sant Cugat del Vallès through which Pol-len participates in eco-social transition projects, together with other cooperatives and the Technical School of Architecture of Vallès (ETSAV-UPC).
- the growing interest of Catalan public institutions in responsible publishing (the Diputació de Barcelona now uses the BookDAPer program), has helped the development of the cooperative’s services related to eco-editing.
Financial support
The partners of the Book PAPer.cat. measurement tool have received funding from the European Union (LIFE + Greening Books) and the Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals (ICEC). ICEC has also supported research on the life cycle of books and a study on the implementation of the Ecolabel.
Awareness-raising activities have been financed by Sant Cugat City Council and Barcelona City Council has financed the last three editions of EcoBookLabs, meetings in which Pol-len edicions explores specific ecopublishing topics.
Encountered barriers
Regarding the toxicity of inks, toners and the impact of digital printing, it is difficult to obtain transparent information from manufacturers.
Measures of change
Pol·len edicions was able to use the BookDAPer tool to calculate its own CO2 emissions. Over 2021, they published 13,000 copies (15 books), which generated 15.5 tons of CO2. If they had been printed in China, their carbon footprint would have been 125 tons of CO2 and in Slovenia 31 tons of CO2.
The actions aimed at reducing Pol·len’s ecological footprint have enabled the development of new projects in conjunction with other partners. The cooperative has been able to position itself as a reference structure and to get part of the sector and local institutions to change their practices by adhering to the principles of eco-editing.
