Free eBooks Celebrate Earth Day

Hoping to help spur the publishing community’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect forests, FreeandGreen.com marks Earth Day 2008 by offering free eBooks in partnership with BooksOnBoard.com and Abbey House Press.

According to Bob LiVolsi, president of BooksOnBoard.com, “Greenhouse gas emissions can be dramatically reduced over time through the advance of ebooks and other means of delivering content digitally.”

Susan Kiser, publisher at Abbey House Press, cites the Green Press Initiative, “Each year, approximately 30 million trees are used to make books sold in the United States—1,153 times the number of trees in New York City’s Central Park. Many of these trees are sourced from endangered forests with devastating impacts on the people and wildlife that rely on them.”

Paper production requires large quantities of energy, making it the fourth largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

Kiser adds, “When paper degrades in a landfill it releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”

The publishing industry is striving to be more environmentally responsible, with initiatives to use more recycled paper, but, LiVolsi maintains, this may ultimately be insufficient in our “increasingly fragile global eco-system.”

“Unfortunately, the technology to deliver digital content effectively and intuitively for readers is only now reaching acceptable standards, “LiVolsi said, “More needs to be done. It is important to all of us that readers begin to get some portion of their content digitally and feed back the shortcomings to the industry so that consumer-focused improvements can be made.”

The free books provided by the Abbey House Classics imprint of Abbey House Press can be accessed through www.FreeandGreen.com and at www.BooksOnBoard.com.

Contact Information

Nathan Johnson

Director Operations

BooksOnBoard, Inc

Contact via E-mail