As last year, a carbon footprint assessment was carried out by The Good Jersey Life to understand our environmental impact.

We reduced our impact from 87 tonnes in 2021 to 54 tonnes in 2022. This pie chart summarises the reported percentage of carbon emissions from each operation.

Quality is (and always will be) paramount, so we use trusted and reliable printers in China with the highest of standards.  It’s interesting to note that as detailed in this Publiship report, shipping is the most environmentally friendly way to move freight:

Moving a 40’ container of books weighing 18 tonnes door to door from factory in Shenzhen, China to Warehouse, Oxford by sea would generate approximately 1.17 tonnes of carbon. The same cargo moving by truck from Milan, Italy to Oxford would generate over 1.3 metric tonnes and from Bratislava, Slovakia it would be over 1.53 metric tonnes.

Of course, shipping from a port in Italy to the UK is a quarter of the distance, so while we grow our network of trusted printers to include those closer to home (as far as we know, there is no printer in the UK who can produce the type of board books we publish), we will reduce our impact by annually offsetting our carbon emissions.

Instead of using a carbon offset programme, we will match what we would have paid (£9 per tonne for carbonfootprint.com’s Worldwide portfolio), to support The Woodland Trust, the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity.

Understanding the level of sustainability our suppliers have is complex. However, the paper they use to make our books have the following certifications:

• Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC) certification. This is the only wood certification endorsed by organisations such as Greenpeace and WWF. 

• The ISO 9001:2015 which represent quality assurance system and ISO14001: 2015 for implementing an Environment Management System.

Mama Makes Books is committed to using FSC paper and board for all the books we publish as a minimum standard going forward, and will encourage our publishing partners to do the same.

Our distributor, Booksource in Glasgow, only uses cardboard packaging for all their deliveries, and paper void fill, all of which can be recycled.

Our catalogues are printed on recycled paper by an eco-friendly, sustainable vegan printing company based in London. 

Our other marketing material is printed by a local printer on recycled paper.

In carrying out our day-to-day work we are always reducing, reusing and recycling cardboard, paper, plastic and metal waste. Although we are small, we try to be a positive influence on our suppliers and customers.