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Obviously, the greenest book is the one that you don't buy. Borrowing from a library or a friend will always be better for the environment than buying, but there are cases when owing books make sense (library doesn't have it, you need it for future reference, etc).
But there is one way to make the books that you already own greener: Start a library at your work place. Not everybody will be able to do this, it depends on the kind of work that you do, but we think that it would work for most (even on an aircraft carrier!).
The goal is to make it easy for you and your coworkers to share books, and increase the total number of readers per book (the more readers, the greener). But that's not even the main benefit! If you do this, you can expect much better water-cooler conversations, and you could discover books that will change your life that way (and conversely, change the life of some of your co-workers).
Few things are as powerful as books to condense lots of information. A writer might have worked for months or years on his manuscript, he might have accumulated expertise on the subject over a lifetime. Absorbing that information over a few hours would be considered magical if we weren't so used to it.
We recommend stocking your work place library with green books! For example:
- Build a Green Library: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- Build a Green Library: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
- Build a Green Library: Naturally Clean by Jeffrey Hollender
Difficulty level: Easy to Moderate
