2000 - Canopy, formerly Markets Initiative, a one-person Vancouver-based environmental organization, begins conversations with Raincoast Books (the Canadian Harry Potter publisher) and other publishers to start using more environmental papers in its print runs. At this time, no publishers are consistently printing on Ancient Forest Friendly papers, as they are unavailable in book grade.
2001 – Canopy works with Raincoast Books to develop an Ancient Forest Friendly paper policy for all of its titles. The environmental group also works with 20 other Canadian book publishers, including McClelland & Stewart, Random House Canada and Douglas & McIntyre to develop new, environmental paper purchasing policies.
2001 – The first Ancient Forest Friendly book grade paper is developed in response to publishers’ requests. Alice Munro is the first big name author to print her book on Ancient Forest Friendly paper in Fall 2001.
2002 – Raincoast Books asks Canopy for help shifting its reprints of the first four books in the Harry Potter series onto Ancient Forest Friendly papers—this amounts to 1.15 million books.
2002 – Canopy works with Greenpeace to expand its work with Canadian book publishers into Europe and supports campaigns in seven countries.
2003 – Raincoast Books prints Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Ancient Forest Friendly paper—the only publisher to do so internationally. In doing this, Raincoast saves more than 39,320 trees and greenhouse gases equivalent to driving a car 3.3 million miles. Raincoast works closely with Canopy to ensue this title is printed on an Ancient Forest Friendly paper as well as building the green paper into core marketing strategy for the book.
2003 – J.K. Rowling issues a personal statement about the Ancient Forest Friendly initiative that appears on the front page of the Canadian edition of the book.
2003 – Canopy meets with Rowling’s agent about other international publishers printing on Ancient Forest Friendly papers for future books.
2005 – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is printed on Ancient Forest Friendly paper in both official Canadian languages, as well as on eco-friendly papers in seven other countries including Israel, the UK, Germany and France.
2005 – Scholastic fails to print the US edition of Harry Potter on eco-friendly paper. Canopy exposes Scholastic’s reluctance to shift to a more environmental paper through a widely read New York Times article and other mainstream and industry media stories.
2007 – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows proves to be the greenest book in publishing history to date. The last installment of the Potter series is to be printed on eco-friendly papers in 23 countries and in at least 8 languages. From the US (Scholastic developed a new policy for the last Potter book and for all of its book titles) to Australia, Canada to Israel, the UK to Argentina, Potter fans will be able to enjoy eco-friendly versions of Harry’s final adventures.
Aww… yet another reason to love HP 