Future Book Forum 2021 trailblazes the path of sustainability in book publishing

One such speaker was Jessica Lobo from the United Nations, who delivered a keynote presentation on ‘Why sustainable innovation matters?’. In her presentation, she delved into why the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are both important and relevant in publishing and shared tools and real-life examples that attendees could take away and put into practice in their own organisations. “By using innovation, particularly by using sustainable innovation, organisations can really scale up impact, can really drive transformational change and unlock market opportunities,” she explained.

 

It was also fascinating to hear about Andy Hunter’s plans to roll out a new retail initiative in Europe that is focused on e-commerce for independent bookstores. The founder and CEO of bookshop.org also spoke about his company’s business model and the role played by digital printing in fulfilling his company’s promise to improve sustainability.

Otava Printing’s Managing Director, Marko Silventoinen has taken the company in a new data-driven, highly efficient direction. Their ‘book life cycle management’ business model promises to optimise the supply and value chains of printed books and subsequently make their business practices more sustainable. Marko highlighted the benefits the business is already seeing, “By adapting short-run production to the value chain, we are already reducing inventory on the new titles by 15%.”

 

 

As our own new initiative for this year’s Future Book Forum, we also set up the Canon Idea Challenge which welcomed innovative ideas to make printed books more sustainable. Using the HYVE Crowd platform, the competition was open to everyone inside and outside the book industry, and the shortlist of entrants pitched their ideas live during the Future Book Forum to a panel of experts in the ‘Canon Innovators Cauldron’! Attendees had a chance to vote for their favourite idea and we had some excellent submissions. The proud winners of the Canon Idea Challenge 2021 are:

 

1. Lucy Swanston, Topic Heroes

2. Michael Schobersteiner, QR - Quality Label on the Book

3. Robert Gegenhuber, Print-on-Demand books meets Crowdfunding

Overall, we saw attendees enthusiastically embracing the new ideas and practices shared throughout the forum and we predict a positive and more sustainable future for the industry, We’re looking forward to celebrating a decade of Future Book Forums next year!