Editor’s Note:  This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a  a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

Let Me Out! How to enjoy the school run by Ann Kenrick is a book about sustainable school travel.  Any parent, no matter the size of their child’s school, has witnessed the traffic jam and exhaust fumes associated with the start and end of the school day, but it wasn’t always so.  According to Kenrick, if you picked a random group of 40-year-old and asked them how they traveled to school, over “90% will say they walked” to school.  Let Me Out! How to enjoy the school run contemplates why school transportation trends have changed in such a short time and suggest methods to “reverse the trend.”

Why should we care how school children are transported to school in Europe and North America?  Of course, greenhouse gas emissions are a concern of any form of gas-fueled transportation; however, there are economic and health concerns as well.  Childhood obesity is on the rise, and the world is facing high unemployment rates and economic recession.

Kenrick offers practical advice for making changes within your own school district. She suggests parents form an action group and start by focusing on travel to school, since after school programs create a variable of times for afternoon transportation. Kenrick answers many possible objections from car loving parents, such as:

OBJECTION:  The traffic is too dangerous for my child to walk.

RESPONSE:  There are many dangers associated with being in a car as well…

If in a car – twice as likely to be in an accident than if on foot.

Kenrick goes on to explain how your parent action committee can create a School Travel Plan providing many examples from successful schools, as well as ideas for support and funding.

Let Me Out! How to enjoy the school run is published by Lollypop Publishing.  This green publisher uses 20% post consumer waste, acid-free paper that is certified by SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative), and PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes). Furthermore, the company uses a unique printing method:

At Lollypop we use the LSI solution of “one–off” printing as we view it as one of the most environmentally friendly print options available to the book industry today. Considering the elimination of wasted inventory, the elimination energy needed to recycle wasted inventory, and the elimination of fuel burned to ship large volumes of books around to multiple stops in the value chain. We feel that the environmental impact is significant.

There is a considerable reduction in the number of miles our books are transported. Directly from the printer to the point of sale vastly reduces the effects of unnecessary transport has on our natural environment. Usually unsold books and are destroyed after being shipped and handled many times. The production methods we employ stop that.

Disclosure: I was given a review copy of this book in order to participate in the Green Books Campaign.