Emissions reporting at Penguin Random House Australia

With the climate crisis as pressing as ever, it is up to all of us to do what we can to help. For businesses and individuals, a big part of that is trying to lower our carbon emissions. Before we can determine where opportunities for improvement lie, however, we must first know where we stand.

At the beginning of 2022, Penguin Random House ANZ (PRH ANZ) conducted our first-ever carbon emissions analysis through an independent third party. Together, we generated a report outlining our 2021 carbon footprint, covering the direct (the things we have immediate control over) and indirect (upstream and downstream supply chain) emissions of PRH ANZ.

Unsurprisingly, indirect transport emissions are the largest contributor to our footprint, accounting for 63% of our emissions – with a significant amount of our inbound international freight delivered by sea and air. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix; reducing our indirect transport emissions will require a long-term shift in production. Nevertheless, it’s something we’re working towards and hope to make progress on over the next few years.

While the changes in PRH ANZ's production will significantly reduce our carbon footprint, we nevertheless want to make an immediate change. Using data collected from the report, we have determined that the next-best issue to tackle was direct emissions – most of which come from energy usage and waste. By the end of 2023, PRH ANZ will be transitioning to 100% renewable energy across all offices and distribution centres. We will also focus efforts on proper waste disposal and limiting packaging.

As of September 2022, we have started an employee offset program, which means for each new employee hired, we will offset their average annual work-related emissions. This will be done through Greenfleet, roughly equating to 10 tonnes of CO2e per employee per year. This is just the beginning of our carbon-offsetting approach.

From this time forward, PRH ANZ will conduct an annual carbon emissions analysis, allowing us to track our progress and continuously seek out opportunities for improvement. Detailed information on our emissions and our plan can be found in Our Sustainability Story report.

Stay tuned for future reports and our progress.