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This event was published on 27 June 2024

London Seminar 2024

Seminar | 4 Jul 2024 09:30–17:00 London

The seminar is our annual event where we bring the publishing community and our stakeholders together from across book supply chains to discuss the hot issues, be inspired by the latest innovations, and make new connections. The event will be attended by staff from the 28 publishers that participate in the Book Chain Project, as well as representatives from the pulp & paper mills, printers, certification bodies, NGOs and other stakeholders who we engage with.

The Seminar will be a full day of activities, guest speaker presentations and opportunities for networking and catching up. The theme we will be exploring is “Lifting the Cover: The Age of Transparency and Supply Chain Collaboration”, highlighting how regulation and other drivers are pushing for increased transparency, necessitating further and deeper collaboration across supply chains.

Attendance is limited, please register below and we will confirm your place.
Please email us if you have any dietary requirements.

Guest Speakers
4 Jul 2024 10:00–17:00 London

speaker_134
Anna Wickes
Recommerce Lead, Dr. Martens

Anna looks after Recommerce for Dr. Martens, having launched resale for the brand in the UK and most recently the US. With 13 years experience within sustainability, consulting, and strategy, Anna also brings her academic experience within mathematics, economics and finance to the retail sector, aiming to transform the industry to be more circular and sustainable. Currently based in the UK, Anna has worked across the US and Asia-Pacific to build new business models, and her passion in sustainability led to her founding two businesses, including a zero-waste milk alternative company.

speaker_133
Oliver Cupit
Head of Sustainable Business & Finance, Zoological Society of London

Oliver Cupit is ZSL’s Head of Sustainable Business & Finance. He has 12 years experience working on responsible sourcing of forest-risk commodities, including provision of advice to companies on how to meet the EU Timber Regulation, forthcoming EU Deforestation Regulation, FSC certification requirements and various national regulations in Congo Basin and South East Asia. At ZSL, Oliver oversees the SPOTT ESG data project, ZSL’s consultancy service offering to the private sector and Nature-based Solutions portfolio of projects. Oliver has field auditing experience of timber product manufacturers, developing and delivering training courses on responsible sourcing, and has delivered services and training in the Solomon Islands, China, Malaysia and Vietnam, as well as across Europe. He holds an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford and an MSc in Sustainable Tropical Forestry from Copenhagen and Padova Universities.

speaker_132
Robert Williams
Procurement Director, AstraZeneca

Robert Williams is the Procurement Director in AstraZeneca. As the Director of Sustainability in AstraZeneca’s Global Procurement team, he is working with the global supply chain to deliver AZ Sustainability goals. He leads on reducing Scope 3 emissions towards Net Zero, driving Responsible Supply Chain and supporting the Power of Diversity to inspire innovation. His main focus is on developing high performing supply chains to deliver truly sustainable business growth.

Robert is also the Vice Chair of PSCI Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative; lecturer in energy procurement for the Energy Institute; member of Durham University’s Energy & Industry Board (DEI)

speaker_135
Tim Coles
Director & Chief Executive Officer (CEO), rePLANET

Tim has spent his entire career working in biodiversity monitoring or management. He started his career in the forerunner of the Environment Agency as a Fisheries and Conservation Scientist where he developed the largest river biodiversity programme in the UK with fish, breeding birds and higher plants quantified along every river in Lincolnshire. He left this to found what is now the Institute of Environmental Assessment (IEMA) and after that to found and manage Operation Wallacea. Opwall is a sustainable way of funding biodiversity research and international research teams comprising 200+ academics and supported by paying students have produced 650 papers in peer reviewed journals. During the pandemic when expeditions were not possible then Tim developed a method with a large international consultation group for quantifying how a unit of biodiversity gain could be defined. Tim is currently CEO of rePLANET an organization that funds ecosystem restoration and protection using carbon and biodiversity credit funding at 25 sites around the world.

This event is in the past
This resource was published on 27 June 2024

London Seminar 2024 Agenda

Agenda

We are looking forward to seeing you all in Central London (Lumier London LTD; Underwood Lofts - The Palm Room; 6-14 Underwood Street; London N1 7JQ) for our annual Seminar series . The theme we will be exploring this year is “Lifting the Cover: The Age of Transparency and Supply Chain Collaboration”, highlighting how regulation and other drivers are pushing for increased transparency, necessitating further and deeper collaboration across supply chains. There will also be opportunities to catch-up and network with representatives from the BCP publishers, pulp & paper mills, printers, NGOs and relevant industry groups.

This event was published on 15 May 2024

2024 USA Seminar

Seminar | 22 May 2024 09:30–17:00 Eastern Time (US & Canada)

This year we are excited to be back again for our biannual Seminar, a great chance to meet in person with our US-based publishers, mills, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

The Seminar will be an informal day with guest speaker presentations and opportunities for networking and catching up. The theme we will be exploring is “Lifting the Cover: The Age of Transparency and Supply Chain Collaboration”, highlighting how regulation and other drivers are pushing for increased transparency, necessitating further and deeper collaboration across supply chains.

Attendance is by invitation for the stakeholders involved with the Book Chain Project. If you are not a participant in the Book Chain Project, please feel free to register below, and we will confirm your place.

Guest Speakers
22 May 2024 09:30–17:00 Eastern Time (US & Canada)

speaker_129
Brian O’Leary
Executive Director, Book Industry Study Group (BISG)

Brian O’Leary is executive director of the Book Industry Study Group, a U.S.-based trade association that disseminates information, creates and implements standards, and conducts research to benefit the book publishing supply chain.

Before being named to this role in 2016, O'Leary was principal of Magellan Media Consulting, which helped publishers improve how they create, manage and distribute content. In that role, O’Leary wrote extensively about issues affecting the publishing industry. With Hugh McGuire, he co-edited Book: A Futurist's Manifesto (O'Reilly Media, 2012).

O’Leary served as senior VP with Hammond Inc. and oversaw production and distribution operations at several Time Inc. magazines. O’Leary joined Time Inc. after earning an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He also holds an A.B. in chemistry from Harvard College.

speaker_126
Elizabeth Girardi-Schoen
Strategic Industry Advisor Pharmaceuticals/Biophar, ERM

Liz is a chemical engineer with over 40 years of experience in leading environmental sustainability in industry. As environmental sustainability leader at Pfizer for 30 years and Teva for more than 4, Liz also helped form many of the pharma industry coalitions [e.g., PEG, PSCI] and has the unique perspective of customer and supplier. Liz had direct experience in all aspects of EHS risk and compliance, as well as environmental sustainability including product stewardship, [e.g., green chemistry, sustainable medicines, REACh, Pharmaceuticals in the Environment [PiE]] and responsible supply chain. Liz has broad experience with many governments [e.g., US, EU, Israel, Asia] many non-government organizations [e.g., WBCSD, BST, WRI, UNEP, UNDP].

speaker_128
Healy Hamilton
Chief Scientist, Sustainable Forestry Initiative

Dr. Healy Hamilton is a biodiversity scientist with over 20 years experience in the development and application of species, ecosystem, and landscape data in support of resource management and conservation. She is trained in diverse disciplines, with integrative graduate degrees from Yale and the University of California, Berkeley, and extensive field experience in the tropical forests of Latin America and tropical coasts of Pacific islands. She began her post-graduate career as the founding director of an applied conservation science center within the California Academy of Sciences, a major natural history museum, leveraging spatial information from among the 20+ million specimens in the CAS collections. From 2013-2022, Dr. Hamilton was Chief Scientist at NatureServe, the world’s first biodiversity information network, where she led a staff with expertise in ecology, zoology, botany, and spatial modeling in the delivery of foundational information on the distribution and conservation status of species and their habitats. In 2023, she joined the Sustainable Forestry Initiative as their first Chief Scientist, where she is focused on developing and delivering data and tools to support SFI-certified organizations to achieve the conservation objectives of SFI standards. Dr. Hamilton is also a world expert on the taxonomy and evolution of seahorses and their relatives. She is a recognized science communicator whose work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, and KQED, among others. She has served as an elected member of the Executive Committee of the IUCN U.S. National Committee, an Honorary Fellow of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, a contributor to the IUCN Species Survival Commission for Seahorses and Pipefish, and a member of the Key Biodiversity Areas leadership committee. She is the past President of the Society for Conservation GIS, a Switzer Foundation Environmental Leadership fellow, and a former U.S. Fulbright Scholar.

speaker_130
Matt Baehr
Executive Director, Book Manufacturers' Institute (BMI)

Matt Baehr is the Executive Director of the Book Manufacturers' Institute (BMI). He’s been the chief executive of the association since 2017. Matt has a long career in association management, primarily working with trade associations. He holds an undergraduate degree from the Catholic University in Washington, DC as well as graduate degrees from Ohio University in Athens, OH. He resides in Bradenton, FL where he enjoys soccer, cooking and spending time with his wife and 3 children.

speaker_131
Michael Wettstein
Major Account Manager, Lakeside Book Company

Michael Wettstein has Bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a Masters in Graphic Communications Management from NYU.

His first job in the Graphic Arts was making screen printing in a shop in Madison Wisconsin. His professional life began at Simon and Schuster where he as a an Editorial Assistant and then moved into production. After a few years there he took a job in Customer Service at Phoenix Color and eventually moved into Sales. Presently he is a Major Account Manager at Lakeside Book Company running book component marketing and book component sales. He is fascinated by color management and just raised a puppy for the Guiding Eyes for The Blind in Yorktown Heights, New York.

speaker_127
Philip Rothrock
Business Development, Everland

With over a decade of experience within the sustainability space, Philip advocates for nature-based solutions to solve global resource management challenges, with a special focus on ending deforestation this decade. Through his past research and outreach, Philip has helped companies, financial institutions, and industry groups to benchmark corporate leadership in managing deforestation-related risks within global agricultural value chains. More recently Philip joined Everland’s Business Development team to focus on helping companies to meet their climate targets and support large scale forest conservation. Philip has an MS in Environmental Sciences from the University of Wisconsin and a BS in Environmental Studies from Dickinson College.

Type
Seminar
Date
22 May 2024 09:30–17:00 Eastern Time (US & Canada)
This event is in the past
This link was published on 20 September 2022

Hungary Eases Logging in Protected Forests to Tackle Gas Crunch

Hungary waived environmental regulations protecting native forests from logging, showing the increasingly extreme steps the government is willing to take to prepare for next winter’s energy shortages.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's cabinet, citing the effects of the war in neighbouring Ukraine, loosened regulations on logging to meet increased demand for firewood as a result of surging gas and electricity prices.

  • Bloomberg
  • Hungary
This link was published on 25 June 2020

FLATPÅCKED FÖRESTS: IKEA’s illegal timber problem and the flawed green label behind it

This report by independent environmental charity Earthsight finds illegal logging in FSC-certified supply chains in Ukraine. Focussed on the Carpathian forests, it found around 100 sites are being felled illegally each spring, when silence periods should protect several endangered animal species including brown bears, wolves and Eurasian lynx. While regulations require Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) before sanitary felling is conducted, no EIAs were found to have been carried out. Evidence sited by Earthsight includes the Ukrainian State Environmental Inspectorate (SEI), local environmental organisations, and research commissioned by WWF Germany.

Earthsight claims this illegal logging has not been picked up in FSC audits because of systematic issues with FSC that go beyond Ukraine: conflicts of interest as auditing bodies are paid by the logging companies they certify; inadequate oversight by Assurance Services International (ASI) which should be holding the auditing bodies to account but is argued to have failed to do so. The report documents a wide array of cases where FSC-certified firms have been accused of illegal logging, clearance of High Conservation Value (HCV) forests, and human rights abuses from all over the world – including in places such as Brazil, China, Congo, Indonesia, Peru, Romania, Russia, Ukraine. Earthsight highlights that FSC has only investigated 13 companies in its 27-year history – 0.02% of the more than 44,000 it has certified.

In response, FSC states it is fully aware of the issues in Ukraine, and insists that whenever illicit acts are identified or reported they are investigated. IKEA says it has started its own investigations, commissioned audits from a 3rd-party independent audit company, asked questions to ASI, and pledges that if any illegal wood is indicated in its product it will take immediate action.

Earthsight’s report focuses on IKEA because, as the biggest buyer of wood in the world, it has the most influence to drive positive change. However, the issues found by Earthsight apply to the publishing industry as much as they do to IKEA. Therefore, the Book Chain Project will further look into Earthsight’s findings and update you as soon as we decide what further action to take.

  • Earthsight
  • Ukraine
  • Europe
  • FSC
  • Illegal logging
  • Corruption
  • Human Rights Issues
This link was published on 6 April 2020

Latest China Forest Law Adds Prohibition on Illegal Timber

China, the world’s largest timber importer, issued a new draft of its first Forest Law update in 20 years that adds a prohibition on buying illegally sourced timber. It will be effective on 01 July 2020. Issues around enforcement, such as the burden of proof being on government departments, traders being out of scope, and low penalties, remain.
Please find more details about the law here. (EH&CH)
P.S. Recently, we attended an APEC region workshop hosted by APEC Expert Group on Illegal Logging and Associated Trade (EGILAT) in Malaysia on forest law governance. This table captures the major and emerging forest law regulations in the region.

  • BLOOMBERG ENVIRONMENT
  • China
  • Timber
  • illegally sourced timber
  • Forest Law
  • Illegal Logging and Associated Trade
This link was published on 6 April 2020

Deforestation can't be stopped by voluntary action alone

This speech by Brian Schatz, Senator from Hawaii (D) was part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 21—24 January 2020. Seeing that half of tropical deforestation is illegal, illegal and unsustainable timber and goods are flooding global markets. Voluntary commitments cannot achieve zero-deforestation without regulation. Regulation is one of the key drivers of sustainable forestry. This year, Schatz will introduce legislation that will make it illegal for companies to import the products of illegal deforestation.

  • WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
  • Switzerland
  • Timber
  • Illegal Deforestation
  • Tropical Deforestation
  • Brian Schatz
  • Hawaii
  • World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
  • sustainable forestry
This link was published on 26 March 2020

New York’s ‘Toxic Toys’ Law: Governor Signs Legislation Regulating Chemicals in Children’s Products, But Changes to the Law Are Already Coming

A new measure signed into law on 7 Feb by Gov. Andrew Cuomo will enact new regulations on chemicals found in children’s products sold in New York state. The Child Safe Products Act creates and maintains lists of dangerous or questionable chemicals and requires manufacturers to report any substances used in their products. By 2023, the state will ban the sale of products that use certain chemicals, including asbestos, and certain flame retardants. The Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for notifying consumers of the presence of dangerous chemicals.

  • The National Law Review
  • United States
  • substances
  • manufacturers
  • Chemicals
  • Asbestos
  • The Child Safe Products Act
  • The Department of Environmental Conservation
  • Dangerous chemicals
This link was published on 26 March 2020

Titanium Dioxide CMR Carc. 2 classification updates

In October 2019, the 14th ATP (Adaptation to Technical Progress) to the CLP regulation, which includes amendments to Annexes II, III and VI, has been adopted by the European Commission. One of the amendments includes the annex VI entry for titanium dioxide (CAS 13463-67-7) as a carcinogenic category 2 by inhalation route in powder form. This will apply to titanium dioxide in powder form containing 1% or more of particles with a diameter ≤ 10 μm. The classification also requires that mandatory product labelling and warnings will be required for mixtures containing titanium dioxide.
Titanium dioxide is widely used across multiple industries. For example, titanium dioxide is used for the manufacture of chemicals, plastic products, textile, leather or fur, wood and wood products, pulp, paper and paper products, rubber products, coatings and printing inks.
This amendment has been put forward to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers who will have a couple of months to raise any objections. If there are no objections, this amendment will come into force mid-2021.

  • Materials & Supply Chain
  • Europe
  • European commission
  • Chemicals
  • textile
  • leather
  • Titanium Dioxide
  • Adaptation to Technical Progress
  • CLP regulation
  • plastic products
  • fur
  • wood products
  • Pulp and Paper products
  • European Parliament
This link was published on 5 March 2020

Chinese Govt releases regulation on guaranteeing wages for migrant workers

Premier Li Keqiang has signed a State Council decree to publish a regulation on guaranteeing payments of wages to rural migrant workers. The regulation requires market entities should take the lead under the supervision of government and society including labour unions, social medias etc. It states employers must pay employment wage in full and on time through bank transfers or cash. It also clarifies the responsibilities of employers for paying off arrears to migrant workers and corresponding legal account abilities for any breach of the regulation. This regulation will go into effect on 1st of May, 2020.

  • Xinhua
  • China
  • Regulation
  • Chinese goverment
  • Migrant workers
  • Wages
  • Premier Li Keqiang
  • State Council decree
  • labour unions
  • social media