Introducing the SAGE Green Group

As a company, SAGE is committed to minimizing the impact it has on the environment. The SAGE Green Group has been running for over 10 years, and in that time, we’ve already made great progress:

• We are a founding publisher of the PREPS database, which uses the Egmont Grading System to determine the sustainability of different paper suppliers

• We offset our carbon emissions from business air travel (via Climate Care)

• We print our books and journals on FSC papers wherever possible

• We provide recycling facilities throughout our offices

• We have made sustainable choices when refurbishing our London office

• We have created a culture of awareness about the climate crisis

 In July 2019, we re-launched the group with new members and updated objectives.

Our chief commitments now focus on six areas:

1. Publishing Activities – looking at how SAGE runs as a business and the impact our business activity has on the environment. This stream considered topics such as reducing/eliminating company use of plastic; green energy usage; and the impact of printing and shipping our publications.

2. Office Activities – considering what we can do to equip the office with all the information and tools the team needs to lessen the environmental impact of how we work and make a greener office a reality.  

3. Individual Staff Activities – encouraging staff to make smarter choices while they’re at work, supporting SAGE’s vision as a company that is conscious and mindful of its environmental profile and aims.

4. Outside Work – inspires staff to lead a greener life beyond the office, through volunteering opportunities, information resources, and external speakers to equip them to make smarter choices on an individual scale.

5. Wider Community – asking how SAGE can positively impact and influence organisations outside of the company to make greener choices

6. Communications – connecting the group and its efforts to the wider SAGE UK team, working to generate interest and engagement with our cause and to find out what our employees would welcome from the group

Since the relaunch, we’ve already hosted a clothes swap, launched a trial posting some of our journals to subscribers without any packaging, and added signs around our London office explaining how staff should dispose of different types of waste. Although the office closure has forced us to postpone some of our plans, we are still working on new ways to make the business more sustainable, and providing suggestions to inspire our employees to adopt a more eco-friendly lifestyle under lockdown.