Water, Waste and Packaging
Water
Our offices do not use water beyond basic needs - we set targets to reduce usage and it forms part of our climate footprint. We declare water usage data in our section on data.
Unsold product
We sell a variety of products. Most of our products are paper-based in the form of books, newspapers and magazines. Less than 1% of our sales are products such as CDs and DVDs, and sales of magazines are small. We are committed to recycling as much of our unsold product as possible. Sometimes this happens through industry-wide agreements - as is the case for newspapers in the UK - whilst other initiatives are specific to Pearson. Avoiding unsold product is a key business objective. Improvements in stock control and sales forecasting contribute significantly to reducing the amount of unsold product and to lower cost. Responsible disposal of unsold product is a significant environmental responsibility for us.
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | %age change 2011 vs. 2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unsold product | 98% | 99% | 99% | 98% | 98.5% | 98.6% | +0.1% |
Our target is to maintain our reuse/recycle rate for all unsold books and newsprint in excess of 95%. This has been achieved since we set the target in 2003 and remains a high priority for us.
Packaging
We use a variety of packaging materials in the distribution of our products worldwide: cardboard, plastic, shrink-wrap and foamfill (a void filler). A particular objective for us has been to reduce the use of plastic and foamfill in favour of packaging based on natural materials. Our use of plastic has reduced by over 85% over the last five years and foamfill use is over 50% less than 2004. We collect data on books handled to allow us to normalise the indicators we use.