To highlight the pertinent issues faced by women around the globe, which were heightened due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, we organized a series of conversations with stellar Penguin authors, hosted by journalist Pragya Tiwari. The spectacular panel of authors puts the spotlight on topical and relevant themes, which aim to support women by way of empowering them with information, building awareness in the community, and opening doors to more such pathbreaking conversations. In conversation with Tiwari over five distinct episodes, our authors addressed wide-ranging concerns. Sohaila Abdulali and Samra Zafar addressed the issue of domestic violence and sexual abuse, while Kavita Krishnan discussed the idea of women’s safety and personal freedom. Economic journalist Puja Mehra talked about the economy and finance in the context of the current global environment, and Shiromi Pinto spoke on why women artists and architects are often forgotten. To learn more, click here and here.

DK’s global Sustainability Working Party was created to deliver plans on sustainability as volunteers from our offices around the world meet monthly to create and execute our global strategy. The meetings also act as a forum to discuss ideas that will drive forward sustainability initiatives. We also have local colleague-led Green committees dedicated to encouraging sustainable behaviors among colleagues, including reducing printing and single-use plastic. These committees also participate in local and global events throughout the year to raise awareness about environmental causes, such as Earth Day and World Environment Day.

At DK, we care deeply about an ethical supply chain and taking positive actions beyond that of a publisher. Our Green Pledge was launched in early 2020 and pulls together all the important work we do to maintain an ethical supply chain, and the positive steps we are planning for the future. Our work is split into four key areas—materials, environment, safety, and sustainable supply chains—and these will continue to be the focus of our efforts. Our Green Pledge acts as an essential framework for our processes, identifying what we have achieved so far in our sustainability goals and what our next steps will be to maintain an ethical supply chain. To learn more about the pledge, click here.

In 2019, we partnered with Agrasar, a Gurugram-based NGO that works with disadvantaged communities in India, and the Community Library Project, a Delhi-based reading project for children that focuses on building community libraries in the country. Their Learning Program is a low-cost, volunteer-driven citizen initiative. They work with disadvantaged communities, especially children, providing them access to a range of books and encouraging reading. We sponsored a reading fluency program for approximately 150 children from local village areas, helping them enhance their speed and reading accuracy, thereby honing their creative imagination and reading skills. This enabled kids to be more confident readers, accelerate their reading rate, and enjoy longer and more complex books. The children’s progress exceeded expectations in both fluency and accuracy. Many readers became skilled and confident to read longer, more age-appropriate books.

In August 2019, we launched a monthlong integrated campaign to celebrate iconic bestselling writer Sudha Murty’s 69th birthday, highlighting not only her writing but also Murty herself. A literary gem, Murty writes about a variety of topics that are contextual and relatable, and we wanted to pay tribute to her written work and humanitarian spirit. We created a complete collection of all her books for adults and children called the Sudha Murty Library, donating several sets to five public libraries as well as to the Community Library Project, which establishes free community libraries in underserved communities. We also created special, exclusive collectibles to be sold at bookstores across India that showcased her books and decorated their shops to highlight the writer all month long. To learn more, click here.

In 2018 for World Environment Day, we spearheaded the Blooming Diaries campaign, where each employee was given a notebook that, once filled, was to be planted in a pot of soil. As the special paper decomposes, it sprouts flower seeds. Another campaign was The Plant at Your Workplace, where employees would sponsor and care for a plant. This has led to green work desks, with people taking care of their plants, and inspired many to add to the collection.

More recently, in 2019, we organized a planting drive in collaboration with Give Me Trees Trust, a Delhi-based NGO working to plant trees with the help of community volunteers. We aim to give back to the environment by promising to plant one tree on behalf of each employee of ours every year from 2019 forward. Give Me Trees Trust looks after the well-being of these trees, and a government school gets a much-needed green cover. These campaigns were meant to raise awareness for sustainability, recycling, and water as a precious resource and to help start conversations among colleagues about how we can together make Penguin Random House more environmentally friendly.

The theme for World Tourism Day 2019 was “Tourism and Jobs: A Better Future for All,” and the United Nations held the event in New Delhi, India. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide, and DK hosted an event focused on educating children on the importance of tourism.

In association with the National Rail Museum in New Delhi, DK India celebrated World Tourism Day at the museum’s indoor gallery. More than 60 schoolchildren were invited to test their geography skills through a fun quiz and pairing up activity, followed by a contest to draw a view through a train window. A range of DK books was also on display for the children to look at, covering topics such as exploration and local wildlife. As we believe in the power of discovery, it was an honor to help children explore ideas and discover new places.

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.

Our fifth anniversary as Penguin Random House in July 2018 provided an unprecedented opportunity to unite around the globe to get more books into the hands of more readers. Through a special anniversary global book donation, we offered every Penguin Random House employee worldwide a selection of free books to donate to any philanthropic or nonprofit organization of their choice. Thousands of our employees joined the campaign, and we were able to provide more than 72,000 books to children and adults in need. Recipient organizations included schools, libraries, hospitals, rural development NGOs, and organizations that serve homeless and incarcerated individuals.

To celebrate 30 years of Penguin in India, we initiated the Penguin Readathon and Book Gifting Journey. We worked with 30 partners from a range of groups—community libraries, shelter homes, independent bookstores, organizations that work with people with disabilities, prisons, and more—to expand the reach of books and reading to diverse communities and audiences. We selected our partners for the role they play in bringing the joy of reading to their communities. To learn more about the campaign, click here.

We celebrated International Literacy Day in 2018 by taking the opportunity to promote reading, writing, and creativity with 14 events spread over two days. We held a short-story competition to encourage in-house talent, and employees from DK India visited young cancer patients at a children’s hospital in New Delhi, spending time painting and drawing with the children, reading to them, and gifting them books in Hindi. We also donated office and writing materials to the Love Care Foundation and Aarambh aid organizations, both of which help underprivileged children.

In collaboration with SheThePeople, India’s first women’s channel inspired by real stories about and by women, in March 2019 we launched the Women’s Library, a monthlong campaign to showcase women’s writing and the impact that women-led writing can have on reading and in people’s daily lives. We curated a selection of work by leading women writers, domestically and internationally, making them available in bookstores across India. To learn more, click here and here.