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Sustainability and compliance: our key to success

Sustainability, environmental protection, compliance and corporate responsibility are issues of crucial importance for the development of our society. Libri is committed to shaping the future in this respect.

Nachhaltigkeit und Compliance bei Libri GmbH

Self-conception

As an innovative and reliable partner in the book business, we are committed to books as a cultural asset and stand for cultural and social diversity, fairness and integrity. It is therefore clear that sustainability, compliance with legal requirements and fair and upright business conduct are a matter of course for us.

Every day, we act in accordance with these values and stand up for them. We therefore also expect our business partners, suppliers, service providers and customers to act in harmony with these values and strive to continuously improve our business activities as well as our products, services and supply chains in line with these values.

As the foundation of our day-to-day activities, we support this understanding as part of our compliance and sustainability management systems through clear structures, preventative measures, guidelines and appropriate tools and initiatives.

Our compliance and sustainability management

As part of the compliance management system, we ensure integrity, minimize legal risks and thereby strengthen our partnership relationships. Our compliance team focuses in particular on compliance risk management, monitoring new legal regulations, guidelines, advice, training and awareness-raising, supervision of the in-house whistleblower system and relevant reporting.

The task of sustainability management is to tackle environmental and social challenges in the sustainability strategy using suitable instruments and concepts. Our carbon footprint is a key component of our sustainability reporting. These have been prepared with the help of an external service provider for several years now.

Our climate strategy

Libri has set itself the goal of being climate-neutral by 2040. An important milestone in achieving our goal was the launch of our photovoltaic system at the Bad Hersfeld site in 2021. The system comprises over 6,400 modules and generates 2,140,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. By implementing this climate protection measure, Libri achieves annual emission savings of one million kilograms of CO2. This step was supplemented by the transition to green electricity on the 1st January 2022, which has already saved a total of over 3,000 tons of CO2.

Neue Digitaldrucktechnologie von Libri Print-on-Demand Druckstrecke

Also located in Bad Hersfeld: Libri.PLUREOS. It combines BoD‘s latest digital printing technology with Libri’s state-of-the-art distribution center. Millions of German and international book titles are therefore available to readers overnight – and in a sustainable way. We avoid overproduction and unnecessary storage and energy costs and use environmentally friendly printing materials. For a sustainable future for books.

Libri’s climate strategy provides for a sustainable reduction and substitution of emissions through efficiency and productivity increases and the integration of renewable energies as well as compensation measures.

As part of our sustainability management, we are for example involved in the sustainability interest group within the German Publishers and Booksellers Association in which our COO Jörg Paul represents the intermediary book sellers. Under the motto “Values. Impact. Act. For books and society.” the Libri.Campus live (Libri event for bookstore owner in Germany and Austria) took place in Bad Hersfeld on May 12 and 13, 2022. The training event, which has been taking place for 20 years, focused on the current challenge of how owner-managed bookstores can contribute to and benefit from a socially, ecologically and socially sustainable future.

Our whistleblower system

For the event of occurring misconduct at Libri or a company associated with Libri, we have implemented a whistleblower system through which such misconduct can be reported (if desired anonymously).

We encourage all persons associated with Libri in any way – for example, as an employee of Libri or as a customer of a company in the upstream supply chain – to bring any matters to our attention in which violations of applicable law (including human rights and environmental violations) or internal policies have occurred, are imminent, or are suspected.

Our whistleblower system is not intended for reports that do not relate to compliance violations!

Further information on our whistleblower system can be found in the rules of procedure for the whistleblower system in our download area or on the website of the whistleblower system under FAQ.

Whistleblower System

Compliance and sustainability in our supply chains

We take our social responsibility very seriously. Particularly in our role as a connector in the bookselling industry, we work with a large number of suppliers and service providers from who we expect, as we do from ourselves, to act in accordance with applicable local legal requirements and recognized international standards and regulations. This includes, in particular, respect for human rights and environmental standards.

The Libri Code of Conduct expresses this commitment to our suppliers and forms the basis for all contractual relationships with them.

Supplier Code of Conduct

In the policy statement on our human rights strategy, we express our commitment and expectation to uphold these human and environmental rights and describe the process we use to ensure this in our own business and with our suppliers.

Policy Statement

Please contact us – We will help you!

Are you interested or do you have any questions about compliance and sustainability at Libri? We are at your disposal!

Contact Compliance Team

Contact Sustainability Team