By: Sustainability Research Fellow, Katie Koenig
Introduction
So much of environmental advocacy and innovation relies on the idea of “the future.” What will the future look like on our current path, ravaged by more climate disasters than ever before? What future do we want for our planet? One where greenhouse gas emissions are eliminated and we live with, not against, the world that sustains us?
What can we, as individuals, do to support such a behemoth goal?
If we want to work to build a kinder future, the question remains of what happens now. This isn’t a solitary project. People are already bringing innovative strategies, technology, and mindsets so that we shift away from industrial waste and towards environmental responsibility.
For all the many things we can do individually to live sustainably, it doesn’t always have to feel like an isolated, uphill battle. It’s important to identify environmental projects and join them, rather than always creating new ones.
Writing in the Industry
As a writer, it is easy to get wrapped up in the solitary nature of sitting at my desk and typing away at my computer, barely glancing out the window when the sun catches my eye (though I do love it now that the weather is getting better).
When I spoke with Christine Casson, a passionate writer and professor at Emerson, she posited that “Writing at some level inherently has a smaller carbon footprint” than other careers. We just need a notebook and pen, or a computer with enough charge to power up a document for several hours.
Still, Christine pointed out that there is an entire industry tied into the act of writing. Agents pitching manuscripts, editors looking for the next story to catch their eye, cover designers and marketers and distributors all form a network to provide new stories.
Unfortunately, that network also produces waste whether in the water waste of paper production and transportation, or in the overprinting of books compared to actual copies sold. Between 2015 and 2020, forests were being cut down at around 10 million hectares per year—that’s around 25 million acres—and a portion of that went towards paper production.
The publishing industry produces an estimated 12.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. That’s the same amount of emissions produced by the entire city of Boston over more than two years.
Together with newspapers, it also uses around 153 billion gallons of water per year just to print all the books that appear on shelves. Although this is based off of U.S. Geological Survey reports from 2015, that’s as much water as almost everyone in Massachusetts would use on average in a year.
This centers around traditional book publication, but similar issues are visible elsewhere in our consumer-based economy. Even the shift to digital printing comes with associated technological and water waste to create, distribute, and power the internet services and physical devices we use to access writing online.
Writing Sustainably
No matter where we stand in the industry, if we’re interested in sustainable stories from content focus to publishing practices, there are pre-existing organizations and publications that support such views.
When writing about environmental issues, there are journals and magazines that center those topics. Orion Magazine is one of them, and Emerson’s Green Mag is another. Focusing on the publishing strategies, organizations like the Green Book Alliance, Publishing Declares, and the Independent Publishers Guild drive sustainability-focused change in the industry.
A quick google search reveals dozens of such organizations and even more readers, publishers, and writers alike who are concerned about the environmental impact of the industry. None of us are alone, and none of us have to create our own sustainability groups—there are dozens to choose from.
As Christine said, “There’s a greater awareness of environmental issues now than thirty years ago, or even twenty years ago.” With greater public interest in turning sustainable, there are even more journals, magazines, and other publications that highlight sustainable and environmental stories, whether in content or in production.
This, however, means that it’s very convenient to categorize people and publishers as environmental writers or publications in order to appeal to a specific audience. Labeling yourself or your publication as “environmental” makes it easier to find publishers interested in such stories and to get published once people know you as a certain type of writer.
However, that doesn’t mean we have to limit ourselves to writers specifically categorized as environmentally-focused. The world is large, and creativity is even larger. I myself have always hesitated to claim the label of “environmental writer” because I have plenty of other interests, as well.
Christine put it succinctly, saying, “I am a poet, and I write the poems I need to write.” Without confining ourselves to a single theme or idea, it’s enough to write the stories we feel pushed to write, and to work with stories that we connect with in other parts of the industry as well, whether as agents, editors, publishers, or readers.
Connections
Consider again the solitary writer. I’m sitting by myself at my desk right now, in fact, turned away from the window because my desk doesn’t fit in front of the sill. However, just as I reached out to Christine to highlight her perspective as a published author, we all have to reach beyond ourselves to tell a narrative.
Especially with environmental issues, we have to stay aware of current problems and the impacts on real people. Just as we can reach out to fellow writers, “it’s also helpful if you step outside the writing field.” As Christine said, “There’s ways in which individuals in other fields look at environmental problems that’s very different from an artistic lens.”
This helps us build a more expansive understanding of the issues we are facing today. Much like going beyond the image of the solitary writer to see the rest of the industry, we have to look beyond ourselves to see that no one lives in a vacuum. Although that means discovering a lot of hidden wastefulness, like in publishing, it also means discovering so many new groups implementing sustainable strategies.
Climate change and sustainability isn’t a problem for the nebulous future. Per Christine, “we’re living in it now,” and by reaching out and making connections, we can discover improvements and opportunities to join communities effecting change right in this moment.
Joining communities and talking to people is vital in storytelling. Nowadays, “The idea of storytelling initially is very specific. It’s giving voice to people whose voices haven’t been heard or really taken seriously.” Further, “we’re not hearing the voice of people of color, people of lower income, migrants in this country who are doing all the farming.”
However we act as storytellers in our own lives, and especially as writers, going beyond ourselves is a necessity, not a choice. We can’t just think about it in terms of preserving our world, our perspective, and the nature around us. We must also think about sustainability in terms of conserving. Rather than preserving the past, we can conserve our resources in order to keep our world, our communities, and ourselves alive.