Max Gladwell

Eco-Libris balances your reading footprint

If you’re a tree, you curse the day the printing press was invented. For people, though, it sparked a revolution (some might say a renaissance) in thought and fueled a mass enlightenment that continues to this day. The downside to reading, one might argue, is that it consumes all of those trees. Another might make the case that those trees and books trap carbon, so as long as they don’t end up in a landfill, we’re doing OK. Either way, you can still appreciate the mission of Eco-Libris, which balances our reading footprint by planting one tree per book.

The company works with book readers, publishers, writers, bookstores, and others in the book industry to balance out the paper used for books by planting trees. Here’s how it works:

1. You decide how many books you want to balance out with Eco-Libris. About 20 Million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper used for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone. That’s definitely a problem – trees are one of the most valuable natural resources we have. They literally form the foundations of many natural systems and provide us with numerous benefits (carbon dioxide absorption, soil and water conservation, avalanche control, desertification prevention to name a few).
2. Eco-Libris is providing you now with a simple and affordable way to do something about it. All you have to do is to choose how many books you want to balance out with Eco-Libris, pay for it online, and a tree will be planted for each of these books.
3. Eco-Libris works with its planting partners to plant your trees in developing countries. Our planting partners are organizations that work in developing countries. Their planting and conservation activities are an integral part of their efforts to help local communities in these countries move towards a sustainable future. We make sure that your trees will be planted where they provide significant value for both the environment and the local communities, who are very much involved and play an important part in the planting projects.
4. You receive an Eco-Libris sticker for every book you balance out. The Eco-Libris sticker, which is made from recycled paper, is designed for you to put on the cover of the books you balance out, to show your commitment to sustainability and responsible use of natural resources. We hope you show off these books and inspire your family, friends and colleagues to take responsibility for their books as well.

Eco-Libris maintains profiles on MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Care2, NewsVine, and Twitter. And they also publish a company blog.

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