Book publishing and the European Green Deal: Social dreaming for cultural actors
The European Green deal is an ambitious package of measures ranging from cutting greenhouse gas emissions, to investing in cutting-edge research and innovation, and preserving Europe’s natural environment. The conference, that took place under the Frame of Frankfurt Book Fair 2021, had the purpose of trying to explore pathways to the challenge the publishing industry is facing from the European Green Deal and the New European Bauhaus initiatives.
Keynote speakers on the panel were Nina Klein, Entrepreneur and EU Climate Pact Ambassador, Simone Lippold, Head of Innovation Development Borsenverein Group, Michela Magas, Member of President von der Leye´s New European Bauhaus High-Level Round Table, Peter Kraus vom Cleff, President of the Federation of European Publishers, representing the Möbius project Simona De Rosa, Partner, and researcher Den Institute, and Sara Kelly – Husain, Moderator.
Nina Klein began her speech by showing the state of the tools the ecosystem currently has, as well as the constant need to innovate and take new actions collectively: “the green deal is an innovation project. Because what we have in front of us is a huge transformative change, we need to change everything, which might sound frightening. And we can only do that if we innovate massively, which is that there is a huge budget of five hundred billion euros dedicated only to the Green Deal and the missions, there are huge founding programs globally, they are the biggest and the best for fighting the planetarian crisis”.
Afterwards, Simone Lippold talked about circular economy and sustainability, paying special attention to the need to understand that “sustainability is one of the great challenges of our times”. A fundamental aspect is the possibility that music, books and video games can grow together and work to achieve new cultural goals, always keeping in mind the need for them to be sustainable. Regarding the Möbius initiative, Simona De Rosa contributed to the discussion affirming “we have to reshape the sector business models to catch up to other competitors innovations”. Although this task may seem easy, when it comes to putting it into practice, there are many factors that can complicate its execution.
On a complemenatry note, Michela Magas talked about the new European Bauhaus which is conceived as a movement based on sustainability, inclusion and aesthetics, aimed at bringing the European Green Deal closer to the population. In addition, it aims to be a bridge between the world of science and technology and the world of art and culture, and Michela also says that “what they’re trying to do is average culture to address issues of sustainability, stethics and inclusion”. Relating to the topic, Peter Kraus vom Cleff said “we shouldn’t forget that Europe has a rich culture and rich creative industry, it also has the biggest publishing houses, even the most publications are coming from Europe. Also when it comes to education the biggest book fairs are European, the biggest media concerns are European, while there’s no platform that is European”.
Finally, the panel conclusion agreed that there is an urgent need to make progress in order to put Europe at the forefront of the publishing sector. Although there is still a lot of work to be done, we are certainly on the right track and each of the projects provides great possibilities to continue building this new reality within the book publishing sector.
Want to know more? Click on the links below.
