History

Created in September 2006, PREPS is a group of global book and journal publishers who came together to further develop their understanding of paper supply chains and, in particular, the related issue of responsible forestry sourcing.

Publishers were independently working on this issue, including Egmont UK who had developed a process with external CR consultancy, Acona, to assess forest sources in their papers. Egmont then approached a wider group of publishers to invite them to share their process, known as the Egmont Grading System. 10 publishers then founded PREPS, they were: Egmont, Imago, Walker, Usborne, Hachette, Pearson, Reed Elsevier, Penguin, Sage, and HarperCollins.

Since this time the membership of PREPS has grown to twenty-three, and PREPS and the grading system itself has continued to evolve and react to changes in the sector. Today the PREPS database holds information on fossil fuel CO2 emissions and water consumption at the paper mill level , as well as continuing to hold information on the forest sources that go in to each paper.

The PREPS members meet quarterly to discuss sustainability issues relating to the paper supply chain, as well issues relating to the development of the database and its contents. The group also organises a day-long annual seminar where speakers are invited to present on a wide range of issues relevant to the publishers. Speakers at past seminars have included FSC, PEFC, Greenpeace, WWF, UPM Kymmene, Chatham House, The Water Footprint Network, and Stora Enso.

At our PREPS forum meeting at the beginning of the year it was decided that due to the recent changes to the PEFC standard, it was time for PREPS to conduct a significant overhaul of the way we grade forest sources, and the overall grade we then award to papers based on those forest sources. The PREPS Process Document now shows those changes to the grading system. This new system has been developed by PREPS and is, therefore, known as the PREPS Grading System.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Egmont for the use of the Egmont Grading system, and Alison Kennedy in particular, for her vision and tireless efforts to bring the publishing community to work together on this important issue.

If you’re a publisher and are interested in joining PREPS, contact us. If you have any questions about how we grade papers, read through our process or browse our frequently asked questions.