The Professional Publishers Assoication (PPA) has announced a Net Zero initiative to tackle the climate emergency.
The PPA’s Action Net Zero Pathway aims to decarbonise the publishing industry and obtain net zero carbon emissions across the sector by 2050. The trade body also seeks to make “significant reductions” by 2030.
Launch signatories to the PPA’s Net Zero pathway include ARC, Bauer Media, Euromonitor International, Faversham House, Haymarket Media, Hearst UK, Immediate Media, New Scientist, Think, TTG Media, and William Reed.
Signatories commit to work and deliver on five actions categorised under three pillars: reducing emissions from their own operations; influencing and reducing emissions from their supply chain; and promoting and raising awareness of greener behaviour among their audiences.
Progress toward reducing emissions will be measuring using the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, a widely used and industry-backed standard.
The PPA will collaborate with signatories to make transparent annual progress in emission reduction “in a consistent way” to ensure targets are met. To do so, the PPA will be assisted by experts from the Swedish state-owned research institute RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden).
“Tackling the climate emergency is of utmost importance and the PPA recognises we have an important role to play in supporting and driving the industry collectively towards the goal of Net Zero,” said PPA CEO Sajeeda Merali. “Many of our members are already achieving significant milestones in their Net Zero journey, but this initiative has been designed for organisations to join regardless of their start point.”
The PPA’s full Net Zero Pathway can be found online, however guidelines beyond ‘Getting Started’ are only available to PPA members.
The goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050 is in line with UK Government and United Nations targets. However, such net zero pledges have been criticised as insufficient by a number of activists and think tanks as being ‘too little too late’ or as often over-reliant on carbon offsets rather than carbon reduction.