We are the publishing industry’s leading supporter of PEN America, the U.S. chapter of the world’s leading international literary–human rights organization. PEN’s mission is to defend free expression, elevate marginalized voices, and foster dialogue across boundaries, a mission that mirrors our own core values. As a global community of writers, editors, designers, and free thinkers, we are passionate about upholding and protecting our right to free expression, and, through our partnership with PEN, we celebrate the courage of individuals who constructively challenge censorship and taboo, no matter the odds.
Years: 2020
Reduction of Paper and Single-Use Plastics
Globally, we have increased our efforts to reduce single-use plastic and printing in our offices. Simple solutions have helped us make significant impacts, like using branded Penguin Random House mugs instead of one-time-use paper cups, defaulting to double-sided printing to reduce paper waste, and sharing motivation and encouragement in email signatures to limit printing. In the United Kingdom, we’ve implemented reduction projects to remove single-use plastic from shipping boxes and replaced it with reused cardboard. Transitioning to e-contracts alone has reduced paper consumption in the United Kingdom by more than one million units a year. In Australia, we initiated a “Keep Cup Drive” and saved an estimated 70,800 single-use paper cups from the landfill. In India, we took a pledge to make our office plastic-free and increase our efforts toward reduced energy consumption. India replaced all packaged plastic water bottles with Penguin-branded glass bottles; uses biodegradable paper for waste, has a default setting to print double sided, and automatically deletes print commands after a few hours of no response; and introduced Green Hour every week to avoid using electricity and appliances such as laptops and printers.
Participation in Australia Clean Up Day
AUSTRALIA (2020)
An energetic team of volunteers from our Sydney and Melbourne offices stepped up to Clean Up Australia. In Melbourne, our volunteers met at Markham Reserve to help clean up a nearby creek, while the Sydney team took on a challenging site at Primrose Park. Together with Bushland management staff, we gathered and hauled all manner of garbage and furniture, collecting two truckloads and 20 bags loaded with 200 kilograms of garbage. After a successful day, we celebrated with an afternoon tea in the park provided by the Green Team.
Nonpartisan Campaign to Encourage Voting
U.S. (2020)
Ahead of the November 2020 elections, together with PEN America, Out of Print, and When We All Vote, we launched Book the Vote, a nonpartisan initiative to protect free speech and ensure every voter’s right to participate in elections. Building upon an already successful program from the 2018 midterm elections, Book the Vote unites the organizations’ distinct initiatives under one centralized website, bookthevote.com. By creating and disseminating book and author content, voter registration information, and resources to increase understanding of civic topics, Book the Vote empowers people to participate in our democracy and express their voices through voting.
As part of the initiative, we enlisted more than 20 of our bestselling authors, including Deepak Chopra, Jeffrey Toobin, and Kyle Creek, to make sense of America’s history and politics through engaging and informative videos based on their books. “How America Works” will cover four topics: The Right to Vote, Voting for the President, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral College.
To learn more about the campaign, click here.
Penguin Random House Library Award for Innovation
U.S. (2019)
In January 2019, we partnered with the American Library Association to create the Penguin Random House Library Award for Innovation. The award recognizes the libraries and staff who have overcome hardship and adversity to creative lasting innovative community service programs that inspire and connect with readers. It awards $10,000 to a principal awardee and four runners-up $1,000 worth of Penguin Random House titles each. To learn more, click here. To learn more about our previous winners and how to apply for this year’s award, click here.
Equipping Young People for the Future
Penguin Talks is a program of free creative talks for young people across the U.K. and Ireland. Attendees are given the opportunity to hear from and ask questions to a world-renowned thinker, writer, or influential figure from our family of authors. Held in local schools, Penguin Talks is meant to help equip students by introducing them to new ideas and perspectives. Each Penguin Talk is published in full online, together with free curriculum-based resources for teachers, in order to enable young people in classrooms to engage with the themes and issues discussed. Former Penguin Talks have included Michelle Obama speaking on the power of education and self-belief, Yuval Noah Harari on the future of the world of work, and Margaret Atwood on protest and activism. To learn more about the program, click here.
Volunteer Effort for World Book Day
U.K. (2020)
Every year on World Book Day colleagues across the U.K. come together to celebrate the power of reading with children in their local communities. In 2020, we had our largest ever single volunteering effort, as more than 500 colleagues volunteered in literacy-vulnerable areas. We hosted interactive sessions with more 6,000 people in more than 221 schools, nurseries, and community settings including prisons and homeless shelters including storytelling with little ones and a ‘reverse book club’ with adults. To learn more about our volunteer effort, click here.
Free Books at Shakespeare in the Park
We have been a longtime supporter of Shakespeare in the Park, one of the cornerstones of the Public Theater’s mission to bring performing arts to New Yorkers. Since 1962, more than 5 million people have experienced more than 150 free productions of Shakespeare’s work and other classical works and musicals. We have supported the Public Theater through monetary donations, as well as by distributing free books to theatergoers waiting in line for tickets. Throughout the years, this has become one of our most popular volunteering opportunities, and many of our bestsellers have been gifted to eager readers. To learn more, click here.
Celebrating I Read Canadian Day
CANADA (2020)
On February 19, 2020, we celebrated the inaugural I Read Canadian Day. A national campaign spearheaded by children’s author Eric Walters, many of whose books we proudly publish, I Read Canadian Day is dedicated to reading and promoting Canadian literature across the country. The campaign started in the children’s book world and quickly expanded to include Canadian books for readers of all ages, and we also participated, along with a number of our authors and accounts. Staff shared favorite Canadian-authored books on corporate social media channels and appeared on CTV’s Your Morning, a national breakfast television program, to share Canadian “readalike” recommendations for kids. To learn more about I Read Canadian Day, click here and here.
Employee-Led Diversity & Inclusion Council
We want everyone who works at Penguin Random House to feel like they belong. To help do so, in 2018 we formed a Diversity & Inclusion Council comprising employees from all areas of our business. The Council is dedicated to facilitating a company culture that fosters inclusion and equity, supporting a broad, wide-ranging spectrum of perspectives. The Council proactively makes recommendations for ways to enrich our culture by amplifying underrepresented voices and providing welcoming and open spaces that empower our employees to publish books that truly reflect the diversity of our world. Diversity & Inclusion Council members have also established Diversity Committees in each of our divisions. With more than 200 employees actively involved, many of these divisional committees have organized special task forces that focus on an array of topics to create a positive, engaging, and inclusive working environment.