A World Of Difference: 7 Stats Showing Our Environmental Impact so far

Posted by Better World Books on 04.25.2013 at 10:55 am

Better World Books was founded on a triple bottom line premise: people, planet, and profit. Sure, our core business is a form of reuse—finding new homes for old books. But did you know that we maintain detailed internal metrics on our sustainability impact?

Here are seven of our most salient stats, updated for April 2013: Read more…

2 Comments » | Tagged Impact, 100000000 reused or recycled, environmental impact, man that is a whole lot of books, stats

Green for All Initiative

Posted by admin on 10.03.2007 at 7:35 am

I am excited to share with you some news regarding Better World Books’ support of “Green for All”.   See this from Brad Weirich, Employee Development Manager, who will be involved with this effort going forward (representing Better World Books):

Green for All, a new campaign focused on bringing “green collar” jobs to urban areas, launched on Friday, September 26th, at the Clinton Global Initiative.  The group, created by Van Jones, Co-Founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, seeks to capitalize on the exploding green economy while ensuring that the coming green economic wave impacts on more than one level.

The Green for All campaign is a bold effort to harness the growing power of the green economic revolution to fight the war on poverty.  By securing job training for 250,000 workers from urban communities for the emerging green job market, the program will provide new avenues of opportunity for those who have traditionally been left behind by the nation’s economic growth.

Green for All was launched with the support of over 200 businesses and organizations, including Better World Books.

If you would like to see the full press release, please go here

Have your say » | Tagged Dispatches from the Green House, Impact, david murphy, Dispatches from the Green House, environmental impact, green for all

Recyclers and the Library Division

Posted by admin on 07.30.2007 at 6:34 am

The Library Team is looking for new ways to partner with recyclers to re-use a portion of the books they receive.  We’re big believers in finding a home for every book we can.

We recently joined the National Recycling Coalition as part of our continued effort to be green.  We attended the 2007 Indiana Recycling Coalition state affiliate conference in Bloomington IN and it was great meeting so many other people as passionate about re-using and recycling as we are.

One of the organizations we met publishes newsletters for county recyclers.  Trash Talk loved the Better World Books story and published an article about us that reached 1.5 million people!

Have your say » | Tagged Dispatches from the Green House, Impact, environmental impact, indiana, library, recycling

Better World Books Teams Up with Recyclers!!

Posted by admin on 06.04.2007 at 4:22 pm

Leon County Recycling Services & Education in Tallahassee FL has teamed up with Better World Books to help encourage our local universities to recycle their “no value” textbooks. At the end of each semester, the 50,000 Tallahassee students try to get some value back for the books they bought at the beginning of the semester. Inevitably, some of these books are worth nothing. That’s where Better World Books comes in. Normally the bookstores take these books back and throw them away as a service to their customers (students). However, BWB has developed a system for reselling, reusing or recycling textbooks.

Using their turnkey approach, no books wind up in the landfill, literacy programs benefit both with increased funding or books to distribute and kids of all ages can learn to read. In addition, BWB provides funding to groups on campus who serve as collection crews for the books. To date, BWB has diverted over 4,700 tons of books from going into landfills. They have also provided over 520,000 books and $2 Million dollars to various non-profits in the US and around the world.

In two book drives, Leon County diverted 3 tons of books from the landfill. Currently we are working with Florida State University but are planning on expanding to Florida A&M and TCC this summer. This is a very easy program for any local government to participate in. All you need is a contact at the University and some room to store boxes. BWB handles the rest! For more information check out Better World Books on the web at www.betterworldbooks.com.

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, Uncategorized, book drive, campus, environmental impact, florida, Florida A&M, Leon County, recycling, Tallahassee

Caring About the Environment

Posted by admin on 09.28.2006 at 7:44 am

Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society of two year colleges, has announced that Al Gore will be the keynote speaker at their International Convention in Nashville, TN in the spring of 2007.  As part of the environmental theme, PTK’s international service project this year is Operation Green.

I am so excited to see that an honors society and service organization as large and influental as PTK is taking to heart the messages we are continually seeing in the media about the environmental crisis our planet is experiencing.

I saw the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and watched the Tom Brokaw special on the Discovery Channel called “Global Warming: What You Need to Know” and I was inspired to take action and make an impact.  I went out and bought the energy saving lightbulbs, and I have been trying to recycle more, and think about my energy and gas consumption.  I know that it seems small, and like these actions don’t get us anywhere, but it is when a group of people make these changes, and influence the decisions of others that change really takes place.

A Better World Books book drive is a great opportunity to take action and empower yourself, your student organization, your community, to come together and take action. By leading a book drive on your campus you will be encouraging students to donate their no-value books rather then throw them in the trash.   Thousands of students have made this choice, and the result has been 5 million pounds of books being diverted from the landfill through the BWB book drive program.

“By the year 2100, in the lifetime of our children and grandchildren, our world will be a drastically different place,” says Tom Brokaw in the Discovery Channel documentary.

For the students in this country, the young people, this is our future.  Now is the time to take action.

Have your say » | Tagged Impact, Our Partners, Uncategorized, Al Gore, book drives, campus, environmental impact, Our Partners, Phi Theta Kappa