I know everyone will be writing about Queen Elizabeth II and/or King Charles III this week but I had already planned to write something about ‘The Green Writer’. As our new King is a big supporter of saving the earth, I have decided to go ahead with this subject. However, before I go on, I would like to say that I think the Queen was a wonderful woman and an incredible role model. I am sad she has left us. Her life has been long and successful, by whatever targets you set and I hope we can continue to learn from her.
Despite our collective and individual sadness, there are still somethings to celebrate as writers in the coming months and years. We now have an amazing advocate in our new Queen Consort, Camilla. She established a Reading Room during the Covid period but long before that she had been a huge supporter of reading and writing. Amongst other things, she was Patron to the competition 500 Words which was established to encourage children to write. I hope she continues with this patronage, but I suspect if she doesn’t the new Duchess of Cornwall will back it with just as much enthusiasm.
Now, let’s think about the environment, should we? On the face of it, writers and the writing industry are not considered as one of the great polluters. I mean, we just sit in our back bedroom, often with no heating on (we couldn’t afford it before the current crisis so we have no hope now) huddled over our old computer. You are picturing us now, aren’t you? I bet the picture in your head has us all clothed in hand knitted, multi-coloured jumpers, fingerless gloves (also hand knitted) and we have multiple layers of woolly socks. Oh and don’t forget the glasses held together with tape and uncombed hair.
Well some of us may look like this, particularly in the winter months, but would we all be able to become a *B-Corp Company, when we investigate our practices a little more. The start of our process for many of us is on our back bedroom or dining room table. Do we have the most efficient lighting? What about the insulation we have in our house? Do we heat our building in the most efficient way?
I think our computers are probably not be likely to be causing too much stress to the environment but where do we store our words? Do we have any things on the cloud? I understand that these ‘clouds’ get very hot, so they locate them in in the polar ice caps. There is some rumbling that these ‘hot clouds’ are melting the ice they live amongst which isn’t so good. If you are interested, I have considered this at some length but at the moment, I am sticking with cloud storage and cloud apps whilst keeping an eye on the whole debate. I am not sure we have much choice if we are to continue working worldwide or even countrywide.
I don’t print a lot in the office, I don’t know about you? I feel quite good about that but I suppose if we do, we have to consider where the paper comes from, is it recycled and what about the ink that we buy? I think I have established that I am and probably many of you are fairly low maintenance to this point, but like everyone else in this business, I ultimately want my words in print. This means lots of paper.
I really love the feel of a ‘real’ book or a paper-based magazine. I know whenever you ask avid readers what they prefer, a paper book or an e book, a very large percentage opt for the real book. It is the feel, the smell and the lack of worry that blue light will affect your sleep I think. I mean, it could also mean something to burn (please see the film ‘The Day After Tomorrow’) if we get a big snowstorm and the electricity is lost. Somehow though, I think most book lovers would rather die than burn books, especially a favourite one, so perhaps this isn’t a good enough excuse to keep real books.
I am not the world’s expert on the pros and cons of all this use of paper as opposed to the servers we use to store the e books and magazines, but I suspect there is not an easy answer. There are many factors such as how old is the book, how many times is it read, what type of paper is used both for the pages and for the cover, where the paper is made, where is it shipped to for printing and then onwards for sale. Oh my head is beginning to hurt.
But never mind the paper, What about your research? Some writers like to write about places they want to visit or pick subjects which means lots of travel to investigate. I mean, it is part of the fun! However, in our quest for ‘greeness’ can we justify that journey? On the other hand, if the writer goes on behalf of all of the readers, it will save them all going to visit. I know during the various lockdowns, many readers talked about heading into books which took them all over the world (and beyond) when they couldn’t, in reality, go past their front gate. Perhaps I might consider keeping my subject matter in the UK then and pick my transport options carefully?
Will I get to be a B Corp company? I suspect I am not big enough entity to be able to do all things that are suggested on their checklist but I can certainly think about the impact I have on my environment. The best any of us can do now is to not just blindly go forwards without thinking about the impact we are having on the world in which we live. So get out to those knitting groups, order your writer’s uniform but don’t forget to check where the wool came from and the type of the dye they use. Dig out your quill, make sure your ink is from natural sources but whatever you do – just keep writing.
*B Corp Company standards look at a social and environmental issues. I have only referenced it in terms of the environmental targets.