5 March 2020:  In light of the unprecedented, ongoing and unpredictable developments around the novel coronavirus, Covid19, this year’s Redux Conference in Cambridge will not go ahead. Instead, we are drawing up plans for an alternative, online event in the summer and hope you will be able to support us as we work to preserve the quality and content of the event in a new format. A full press release will be available tomorrow morning outlining plans for Redux Online and Redux 2022. Delegates, speakers, chairs and sponsors have been contacted directly.

During the panel discussion Policy and the Environment at ALPSP Redux 2020 we will be exploring the environmental challenges facing university presses.

From our impact on the environment through publishing production processes (with Stephanie Attal-Juncqua from The Book Chain Project), through what content we should be publishing, in what format, and our responsibility to making research open and accessible to enable a lasting solution to the climate crisis.

Mike Berners-Lee opens his book There is No Planet B by describing it as a book that “… is about taking the chance for us to live better than ever and heading off the threat of living worse or not at all.” Very fitting that as university presses we are able to publish such titles during the current climate crisis, however, what should we be doing to help steer the world away from this threat?

As university presses we have been doing our duty to publish on the subjects of climate change, the environment and sustainability for decades. But with a shift in the urgency of the climate crisis, these topics and discussions have been propelled beyond research and scholarly articles into every day conversation. The question facing us is how we as publishers of climate research should respond to this almost uncontrollable thirst for knowledge, openness and rapid change needed in the face of environmental transformation.

Truly being part of the solution to climate change will require substantial business transition for university presses across all aspects of the business, a challenge Cambridge University Press Director for Global Environment Helen Griggs is taking on and will share with us at the conference.

Sustainable environmental practices should not be seen as a compliance exercise or as a disruption for university presses, but rather as an opportunity to lead in the change for a chance to live, publish and do business better, because fixing Planet A is still our best option.

Find out more about Cambridge publishing on climate change and the environment:

2020 Climate Change books in print
Earth and Environmental Sciences ebooks and journals
Climate Hot Topic ebooks collection on Cambridge Core
Environment and Sustainability ebooks collection on Cambridge Core