Environmental & Social Commitments
We at Broadview believe that ethical conduct is not only compatible with sound business practices but is also an essential obligation. Our commitment to ethical conduct carries through to all aspects of our operations, from the selection of books that we publish to the choice of paper on which we print those books. We aim to always extend fair treatment to our authors, our staff, our freelancers, our suppliers, the professors who adopt our books, and the students who purchase and read our books. We also aim to minimize our environmental impact, and try to give something back to the communities in which we operate.
Recycled Paper
We track our use of recycled and FSC-certified paper quantitatively, and make a concerted and consistent effort to print on the most environmentally-friendly papers available to us. For many years now, nearly all Broadview books with paper weights of 40lbs or greater (what is considered the “standard” paper-weight range for books) have been printed on FSC certified and at least partially recycled paper, with the majority of these being printed on 100% recycled paper.
As the figures below show, while the number of individual titles printed on 100% recycled and FSC-certified paper is fairly high, ranging from 77-83% annually, the number of pages printed on 100% recycled and FSC-certified paper is much lower, ranging from 44-54% of all pages printed. The barrier we’ve come up against is that our long anthologies, which have high page counts and are often printed in large quantities, must use very thin paper in order to remain reasonably light and portable. There is very low demand for recycled or FSC-certified paper that is also thin, and for this reason it is not available from any Canadian printers. We continue to encourage the development of a broader range of environmentally friendly papers through our partners in industry, and we remain committed to using these options wherever possible. In 2022 we reached the highest percentage of titles printed on FSC and 100% recycled paper since we began tracking this information; however, we had the lowest number of pages printed on this paper (44%), due to the need to print large anthologies in high volumes this year.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| % titles printed on FSC & 100% recycled paper | 80% | 79% | 79% | 79% | 83% |
| % titles printed on FSC & 30% recycled paper | 91% | 88% | 86% | 83% | 87% |
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| % pages printed on FSC & 100% recycled paper | 49% | 47% | 53% | 45% | 44% |
| % pages printed on FSC & 30% recycled paper | 66% | 56% | 68% | 52% | 50% |
Reparations and Charitable Donations
Broadview is committed to the principle of reparations (you can read our full statement on racial discrimination and reparations on our blog); as a tangible acknowledgement of that principle, we began in 2020 to assign 1% of our annual after-tax profits to charities focused on improving educational and other opportunities for disadvantaged Black and Indigenous students.
In 2022 we gave 1% of our profits to the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, and The Black Business and Professional Association National Scholarship Program, and an additional 1% to the Against Malaria Foundation.
Additionally, we donate a portion of revenue from several titles to charity, including a royalty on sales of The Ethics of Pandemics and Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics 4e to Doctors Without Borders, and a royalty on sales of books highlighting topics of racial justice to organizations such as the Equal Justice Initiative, Color of Change, and The Movement for Black Lives.
Representation
In all areas of our list, we especially welcome proposals from scholars with backgrounds that are underrepresented in publishing and academia. For our anthologies and editions, we are also particularly interested in proposals featuring authors who belong to underrepresented groups. Where a proposal is for a new edition of a work by such an author, we strongly prefer to have editorial involvement by one or more scholars who are also of the relevant group (though we do not make that a requirement).
Books for Donation
From time to time, Broadview is in a position to donate copies of recently out-of-print books to not-for-profit organizations and programs. In 2022 we donated and paid to ship over 300 books to four different prison education programs. If you are a member of an organization that could potentially make use of such a donation, please contact Ross McCallum at ross@broadviewpress.com with information on the types of books that would be of greatest interest and a description of your intended use of those books.