Corporate Services and the Sustainability Subcommittee have formed a Zero Waste Task Force to execute on a long-term Zero Waste initiative for the company’s New York City office, rethinking how we reduce, divert, and dispose of waste that ends up on-site. Achieving zero waste means conserving all resources with responsible production, consumption, and reuse of materials with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health. We have been tracking our waste diversion for 1745 Broadway on a monthly basis for over a year now to inform and quantify our waste diversion efforts. We diverted 167 tons of items from landfill primarily through recycling and donation programs in the first 12 months of tracking.

We care deeply about the planet and creating a business that gives back to nature. In 2022 we partnered with One Tree Planted, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to global reforestation that plants trees to restore nature and biodiversity. As part of this partnership, for every new employee that joins PRH U.S., we donate to have a tree planted in their honor. We also celebrate career milestones by donating to have the corresponding number of trees planted for the number of years worked in five-year increments. To learn more about One Tree Planted, click here.

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.

In December 2020, we took a major step forward in sustainable book production in Germany by signing the Healthy Printing Charter. In addition to the consistent avoidance and compensation of CO2 emissions, our teams in Germany commit to the Healthy Printing principle: To ensure that all materials are returned to the cycle and can continue to be used. That means, for example, that paper can be recycled, and the inks or glues used can be removed without leaving any residue, making all materials as compatible as possible for humans and nature. To learn more, click here.

As part of our ongoing efforts to help protect the planet and its future, we are proud to support the All We Can Save Project. Created by the editors of One World’s ALL WE CAN SAVE: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, Dr. Ayana Johnson and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, and inspired by the anthology, the new initiative will accelerate the success of the climate movement by providing support and community for women climate leaders — scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers — across generations, geographies, and race.

The All We Can Save Project will hold virtual and in-person programs; provide education and engagement; and direct financial support to cohorts of women climate leaders with the goal of championing a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. One of the most crucial issues of our lifetime, it’s imperative that we acknowledge the intersectionality of environmental injustice with racial, social, and political inequities. We hope the All We Can Save Project will empower women climate leaders in profound and impactful ways to continue to care for our planet and its inhabitants.

Since 2009, PRH has been a member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) SmartWay Transport Partnership, an innovative collaboration between the EPA and the freight industry designed to increase energy efficiency while significantly reducing greenhouse gases and air pollution.
When carrier capacity fluctuates, the Transportation Department focuses on securing the best resources to move our freight, including utilizing freight carriers who are considered best in class. Volume shifts and capacity constraints during 2021 (the latest EPA data set year) required working with a vast array of carriers which slightly decreased our overall percentage of SmartWay carrier miles, but we maintained our status as a SmartWay Partner.

Beginning in 2018, Penguin Random House U.S. started shifting to LED lighting and is now saving more than 2.75 megawatt hours annually, including:

• All floors of our New York City headquarters building (saving more than 743,000 kWh annually)
• All lighting in the Westminster office areas (saving more than 400,000 kWh annually)
• Westminster warehouse areas (saving more than 1 megawatt annually)
• In 2022, we completed installation of LED lighting throughout the Hampstead Distribution Center
• Starting in 2023, we are installing LED lighting in the Crawfordsville distribution center (saving more than 600,000 kWh annually)