Every year approximately 20 million trees are cut down for the creation of books in the United States alone. This is a very significant number and if you read my post about and visited the World Clock website, you can see that forest destruction more than doubles forest plantation. What does this mean? A massive deforestation problem and yet more damage to our environment.

So, what can you do to help? This is where Eco-Libris comes in. Eco-Libris is a new organization working towards replenishing the world’s forests by giving people the opportunity to offset their book purchases. It works like this:

1) You buy a book, or many books

2) You realize that trees had to be cut down to make that book and that most publishing companies don’t give back to the environment what they take out of it (i.e. they don’t replace the trees they cut with new ones).

3) You head on over to the Eco-Libris website and pay $1 for each of the books you just purchased

4) Eco-Libris and its planting partners use this dollar to plant a tree (actually 1.6 trees) in a developing country–8 trees are actually planted for every 5 books to compensate for trees that don’t survive the growth period (this is where the 1.6 comes in).

5) You get a sticker in the mail (made of 100% recycled material) to place on your book reading, “One tree was planted for this book.”

By using Eco-Libris to offset your book purchases, you are, in effect, helping the planet replenish itself. The organization works with other agencies such as Sustainable Harvest International (SHI), RIPPLE Africa, and The Alliance for International Reforestation who ensure that the trees are planted in appropriate areas and are allowed to grow to full maturity.

Of course, I won’t be able to answer all of your questions about this organization in this post, so I encourage you to browse their website or google them for more information. I think services like these are ones heading in the right direction and we should all be doing as much as we can to ensure environmental sustainability. Yes, we also need to pressure the publishers to make more conscious decisions, but at the same time we need to take responsibility for our own consumption. One dollar is not much to pay to know that you’re offsetting your purchase and tightening your carbon footprint.