About Us: Our Mission and Story
Our Mission
Our primary purpose at Treely Green Publishing is to provide a service to self-publishing authors seeking the most earth friendly print and dissemination options for their books. We also offer printing services to companies and groups for their internal or marketing publications. All paper used in our printing processes comes from recycled paper; in the process we protect the lives of trees.
Millions of trees are needlessly killed every year for the printing industry. Alarmingly, the production of books emits more than 40 million metric tons of CO2 globally, making it the third-largest industrial emitter of greenhouse gases. On the other hand, using recycled paper reduces greenhouse gas emissions that can contribute to climate change by avoiding methane emissions and reducing energy required for many paper products. Using recycled paper extends the fiber supply and contributes to carbon sequestration. It saves considerable landfill space, while reducing energy and water consumption.
Treely Green Publishing offers you, the author, the opportunity to have your books and other works printed with the peace of mind that comes with knowing you are contributing to a green future for all of earth’s creatures.
Until now, self-publishing authors have mainly been forced into using printing processes that are only minimally green or not at all so. But we think that publishing companies can and must do better. Humans have leaned far too hard upon the earth. We have taken too many of the earth’s resources while not giving enough back to protect the earth. Now we must do everything possible to restore native habitats, preserve old growth landscapes, encourage native gardening, plant trees and support their growth, and overall, think first of the impacts of our behavior on the earth before acting. We must redouble our other efforts to move away from plastics, clean up the oceans and other waterways, clean the air, clean the water, and in every way begin treating the earth as a living thriving being which is attempting to support life while we humans continue to slash and burn through it. While there are many innovations in the pipeline, we know there are some things we can and must do now. One of these is to protect the trees that support native wildlife systems and to build, rather than destroy, forests.
We believe in the power of books – along with our respect of nature – to create positive change, to inspire others, and to shape a better future for generations to come.
What We Offer
We offer self-publishing and other printing services that use earth friendly sustainable paper throughout the printing process. We therefore refrain from using newly cut trees of any kind in our publishing projects. Instead, we use 100% recycled paper for all printing. In the future we envision moving to paper sources from other paper manufacturing processes, such as using hemp or wheat, as new technologies make book-quality paper available to publishers like us.
We work with authors who value reducing their carbon footprint when having their books printed and who find it easier to sleep at night knowing they are not cutting down trees so people can read their books.
For those of you seeking sustainable publishing options be aware that at present, when asked whether they are using sustainable practices, printing and publishing companies tend to respond, at best, by saying that their printing practices do not use old growth trees, but instead they employ “responsible” tree farming and harvesting. We do not agree with this, and we do not think this is good enough.
Instead of cutting down trees, we believe that many more trees need to be planted wherever they best grow, and with their native counterparts, and that these trees then should be left to develop for future generations and to support other life forms. To restore the the health of the earth we will need to make hard decisions. One of these includes deliberately deciding to create truly green economic and cultural systems, even when this is more costly.
Through this company, we illuminate that self-publishing and other printing can lean only lightly upon the earth, while it should give something of importance back to it. In this spirit, for every new book we publish, we plant a tree. One of our broader primary goals is to help stop the cutting down of trees for paper, thereby significantly contributing to the green movement, since time is running out to develop sustainable practices for protecting the earth’s precious resources. However, one reality is that at present, recycled paper costs significantly more than paper manufactured from the cutting of trees. For this reason, the price you pay for our books or printed materials may be higher than traditionally printed items. At the same time, we work diligently to keep our prices competitive. Whatever else is true, we humans will frequently need to pay more for things when we prioritize the needs of the earth over our desires.
Publishing, printing, and conservation of the earth’s resources can go hand-in-hand. A tree is planted for every book we publish.
Our Story
Our company grew out of our frustration in seeking a self-publisher for our own books (as authors) that use 100% recycled paper. After many months of research, we found no such companies. And we found this to be astonishing, at this point in history, with the existing paper recycling technologies available to us, and with the obvious need to protect the earth before us. After further research we learned that, at least at present, recycled paper is far more expensive than paper made from newly cut trees. We hope that this will change as humans become more enlightened and skilled at supporting the earth.
As a result of our journey to find a self-publisher, and as we increasingly perceived how ecologically destructive the traditional printing process is, we made the decision that our books in all consciousness needed to be printed on recycled paper, using sustainable processes, or they should not be printed at all. During our research, we also noticed
other authors lamenting the lack of sustainable options for self-publishing. We ourselves had been involved in ourselves had been involved in publishing for decades and therefore were already skilled at curating high quality books and other works, with expertise in all adjoining publishing processes. For all these reasons, Treely Green Publishing was established.
Our view is that the Earth simply cannot support and thrive under the constant cutting of trees for paper (which decimates or reduces resources for other plant and animal life). Our company helps you avoid this, as an author or decision-maker in charge of printing at your company or in your group of whatever kind.
Trees are losing their lives for this.
