Last week I received an email from Raz Godelnik at Eco-Libris, asking me if I would pass along a tip to Journal readers about her new venture.

Here's how Raz describes Eco-Libris:

About 20 Million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper used for the production of books sold in the U.S. alone. What we want to do is to raise awareness to the destructive environmental impacts of using paper for the production of books and provide people with an affordable and easy way to do something about it.

The process itself is fairly simple - upon entering our website, customers decide how many books they would like to balance out. They then pay for it online and a tree is planted for each of these books. Customers also receive a sticker made of recycled paper for every book they balance out saying “One Tree Planted for this Book” and can later display these stickers on their books' sleeves. 

We have partnered with three highly respected US and UK registered non-profit organizations that work in collaboration with local communities in developing countries to plant the trees. These trees are planted in high ecological and sustainable standards in Latin America and Africa, where deforestation is a crucial problem, and planting trees not only helps to fight climate change and conserve soil and water, but also benefits many local people, for whom these trees offer many benefits and an opportunity for a better future.

Eventually and hopefully sooner than later, books will be made from recycled paper or other eco-friendly materials and logging for paper will stop. On that day we'll happily move on to a new cause, but until then we think every book reader should take action. We also don’t forget the responsibility of the book publishing industry to the current situation and we intend to become a strong voice in a call for change towards printing books in an eco-friendly manner.

There you have it — an offsetting scheme for avid readers like myself. While Eco-Libris is not intended to be a carbon neutral initiative, every tree planted helps.

Want to help get the message out? Here's an idea: if you're going to be buying books for gifts this holiday season, balance out the purchases with Eco-Libris and put the stickers on your gifts.

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