Proposal:Environmental policy for paper products
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Summary
Wikimedia is involved in a number of projects involving the distribution of paper-industry products. For example, the Create a Book feature on the English language Wikipedia ultimately offers to order a book.
Proposal
- Review the current partnership agreements between Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Chapters, and the paper industry
- Set some environment friendly requirement basis for future agreements : like disclosing to the end-user the environmental labels or the absence of such labels before she/he starts ordering a paper-industry product. Or disclosing the full details on the paper being used (paper manufacturer's name and product reference number or name)
- Write some kind of warning messages like "are you sure your printer is filled with environment-friendly paper, before you start printing this wiki article ? Are you sure you need to print this at all ?" wherever some "print this" link is provided by the Wikimedia/Mediawiki software.
Ideally it should be like a company mission statement in that it's set on one sheet of A4 paper and contains the key commitments the policy undertakes. All goals should be measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound (ie: we will do x by y date). http://www.environmentalpolicy.org.uk/ horse fly
Motivation
Paper products from unknown origins are potential pollutants because : they may enhance water pollution and deforestation (see en:Sustainable forest management).
en:Help:Books/PediaPress order information PediaPress offers high-quality printed books based on wiki content and is an official partner of the Wikimedia Foundation. (...) Books are perfect bound, printed in the dimensions 8.5 inch x 5.5 inch (216 mm x 140 mm) and contain a table of contents, your chapters and articles, licensing information next to an index. and en:Help:Books/Frequently Asked Questions#How are books manufactured? : Books are printed on demand, either in the UK or the USA. Books produced by this technique look just like conventional paperback books contain no information whatsoever on the environmental impact of buying the proposed paper-industry product. horses cn fly and eat mellon heads
Key Questions
- Together, we are documenting our history and society, our science and technology, our culture, our environment : foundation:Help Us Change the World/uk. What is the relation between documenting our environment and change the world ?
- What is the impact on paper consumption of encyclopedias (not just Wikipedia) going online ?
- For example, "Le Quid", a single volume encyclopedia you would widely find (in every French home ?) some 10 years ago has stopped publication. But is there a rebound effect ?
- Did consumers adjust by buying other kinds of books instead of buying paper encyclopedias (so that their overall consumption of books has not decreased) ?
- Did consumers who had no computer at home decide to buy a family computer for the purpose of reading Wikipedia or Encarta ? If so, is the environmental impact of manufacturing (and supplying with electricity and disposing of) a computer better or worse than that of manufacturing a book ?
Potential Costs
Perhaps environment friendly paper (like this) is more expensive. Perhaps it is not. I don't know the prices.
Customers who value sustainability are willing to pay a premium : blogs.harvardbusiness.org
What about the cost of not doing this/cleaning the pollution if the pollution is not being stopped ?
References
- The present talk about the French Wikimedia 2010 Diary : fr:Wikipédia:Le Bistro/1 décembre 2009#Idée de cadeau.
- French Wikipedia wikiposters (2008)
Community Discussion
Do you have a thought about this proposal? A suggestion? Discuss this proposal by going to Proposal talk:Environmental policy for paper products.
Note on categories : athought this has more to do with distribution than contents, "Category:proposal related to content partnerships" is the closest existing category dealing with partnerships.
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