Our sustainable vision
That every book buying family understands
- the life-changing impact of passing on their pre-loved children’s books
- that there are accessible, sustainable avenues nationwide for them to do so
- that by doing so they help to directly tackle book poverty for every child.
We champion meaningful reuse
The process of reuse begins with the attitude that our belongings can have use beyond that of the original owner. When we pass on an unwanted or pre-loved book to another reader we extend its life and widen its impact. The carbon footprint connected to its production remains constant but the book’s inherent value has increased.
Every good quality book gifted to us finds a new home, immediately increasing its lifetime value. However crucially, they are being gifted within book-poor communities where each donated book has the potential to transform and transport a young reader.
We create sustainable reading communities
The Children’s Book Project strives to create sustainable reading communities via celebratory, inclusive book gifting events. Through our work every child in a partner setting has the chance to take home beautiful pre-loved books they have chosen themselves and are excited about. When a child chooses a book with a high level of engagement, they are in turn more likely to pass that book down to siblings or to book swap within their community and in turn to enable another chooser to engage at a high level. And so the multi-level recycling continues.
Our offer emotionally nourishes young people, embeds their sense of belonging, promotes a love of reading and improves educational and socio-economic outcomes. Improved health, wealth and wellbeing outcomes permit greater agency around sustainable purchasing decisions in adulthood. A pattern of recycling with an upward spiral trajectory - what’s not to love?
We advocate for reuse
We are passionate about knowing and understanding the onward journey of our actions. Our partners have been inspirational in the way they have helped in a sustainable way. Abel & Cole customers have to date donated 34,000 pre-loved books via their empty fruit and veg boxes whilst every week over 2,000 books are donated by passers-by to Wates Construction building site ‘hoardings’ around the country.
In turn we advocate for the power of reuse at every opportunity:
- We celebrate the communities that donate books to us and help them to understand their impact
- We help our partners to put on celebratory, inclusive gifting events that heighten engagement with our books and change perceptions of reuse
- We provide targeted, accountable gifting opportunities for publishers that have excess stock that might otherwise be destroyed
- We invite our corporate volunteers to share with their wider colleagues the hidden potential of a once-read book.
We are committed to sustainable practice
The Children’s Book Project is committed to improving sustainability throughout its operations and within the local area and to using its platform to raise awareness of and celebrate the power of a recycled book. Even those volunteers that join us for one day of volunteering can leave inspired to make a difference.
We work hard to ensure that we minimise our impact at every stage of our supply chain and continuously seek to identify new opportunities to be a more environmentally friendly and community-spirited place for our team.
Click here to learn how we are seeking to manage our operational impact.