Faster to Zero

We’re working to become a zero waste and net zero carbon business by 2030

Delivering net zero carbon emissions is essential to prevent the devastating impact of climate change. At Taylor & Francis we’re taking accelerated steps to reduce our carbon and waste footprint, and championing the shift to a lower carbon future across the communities we serve.

Moving faster to zero carbon emissions and waste

We call our approach to becoming a zero waste and net zero carbon business by 2030 Faster to Zero.

We’re reducing the emissions associated with our business as far and as fast as possible, by being more efficient with energy consumption and using renewable electricity. We’re also reducing the carbon footprint associated with our supply chain.

Where emissions are unavoidable, we purchase high quality carbon offsets, supporting projects around the world that have been certified as reducing or avoiding greenhouse gases being emitted.

Our Faster to Zero commitments:

1. Become carbon neutral as a business and across our products by 2025
2. Over five years, halve the waste generated through our products by 2025
3. Become zero waste and net zero carbon by 2030 or earlier.

Progress and highlights

We’ve already delivered significant progress on our commitments. Highlights include the following: 

Recognition

Creating a sustainable supply chain

In the past few years we’ve created a far more efficient and sustainable print supply chain, and reduced our carbon emissions by around 30%. In 2020 we became a CarbonNeutral^® certified business. In 2021 we advanced our sustainability commitments further and achieved CarbonNeutral^® publication certification, in line with the industry leading CarbonNeutral Protocol standard, for all our print books and journals. Our data and methodology for calculating emissions has also received third-party assurance.

Our actions so far include:

• Increasing the use of print-on-demand services to better match production with demand and reduce physical stock levels
• Expanding opportunities for customers and resellers to self-print to eliminate printing to stock and transportation
• Continuing to grow our digital offerings of books and journals, including switching select journals to digital only format
• Donating unused book stock to BookAid and Amnesty International, avoiding waste and contributing to the wider sharing of knowledge
• Implementing a program to remove plastic packaging and lamination from printed journals, which now covers nearly 75% of our products. 

The remaining carbon emissions from our printed products and supply chain are calculated and compensated for through the purchase of high-quality certified carbon offsets. This analysis and tracking of our carbon emissions provides us with information to help us work with our suppliers, customers, and partners to take reductions further.

In the meantime, the carbon offsets we buy support verified carbon reduction or removal projects around the world and other UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relating to health, wellbeing, conservation, and poverty eradication.

We measure emissions from the production of the paper we use, the energy used to manufacture our books and journals, and the emissions from transporting products to customers. This helps us to effectively target the areas in our supply chain where we can continue to make impactful, positive, and sustainable changes that will help us become a net zero carbon business by 2030.

Plastic-free journals

Most of the advanced research we publish is purchased in a digital format. Where customers choose to receive printed versions of Taylor & Francis journals, we’ve successfully removed both plastic lamination from the covers and polywrap packaging from 75% of these publications.

Customer feedback to this initiative has been overwhelmingly positive. We now aim to move 100% of our journals to a plastic-free workflow by the end of 2022.

Our commitment to climate action

Taylor & Francis is proud to be a founding contributor and signatory of Publishing Declares, the Publishers Association’s Climate Action Pledge. Launched in 2021, this is the UK publishing industry’s first declaration on climate action with around 100 signatories so far. We’ve worked with our industry peers to establish and promote the five commitments of Publishing Declares, and pledge to:

1. Reach net zero by 2050. Join the global climate effort to limit warming to 1.5°C by setting ambitious, measurable targets across our own operations and extended supply chain to achieve net zero as soon as possible and by 2050 at the latest.
2. Protect nature and biodiversity. Work with supply chain partners that are resource efficient, use sustainable materials and processes wherever possible in the content we produce, and constantly innovate to make use of new and recycled materials.
3. Strengthen partnerships. Collaborate with our peers, authors, illustrators, supply chain partners, and business partners to translate our climate commitments into tangible actions to safeguard our planet for future generations.
4. Educate our colleagues. Empower our colleagues to become climate literate and support them to bring that knowledge into the work that they do.
5. Advocate for sustainability. Use our expertise, platform, and voice to raise awareness and drive positive climate action wherever we can.

We’re also members of the Publishers Association Sustainability Group. This was formed in 2020 to accelerate sustainability actions in the industry. We shared our knowledge and experience to help with the development of a carbon calculator for the industry and a materials matrix. These enable publishers to incorporate environmental factors in their product design and manufacturing decisions.  

In addition, we’re signatories to the SDG Publishers Compact. This is a United Nations initiative launched in 2020, in collaboration with the International Publishers Association. The Compact aims to accelerate progress to achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.   

Signatories aspire to develop sustainable practices and act as champions of the SDGs during the Decade of Action (2020-2030), publishing books and journals that will help inform, develop, and inspire action in that direction.

Visit our Sustainability Hub to read more about how we’re becoming a more sustainable, positive impact business.