I was in London recently and picked up a few paperbacks… as one tends to do. The connection between paper and trees has been on my mind quite a bit lately and although I have cut down on most paper products (to this end I don't own a printer and have consistently refused business cards), books have never entered the equation.

However, the reality of the book publishing business is grim. Greenpeace has campaigned vigorously for greener standards in the industry and, to be fair, judging by the paperbacks in my backpack, the organisation has done well. At least half of the books I now own are printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. As I pick up the books and decide whether to purchase them, I find myself looking for this reassuring information more and more. The Rose of Sebastopol, the best selling novel by Katharine McMahon, almost doesn't make it because Phoenix Fiction has not bothered to take into account the sensibility of us, environmentalists. It's hard to boycott art though, and I compromise.

According to Greenpeace, 350 million tons of paper are used each year worldwide and every two seconds we lose forest the size of a football pitch. Worst affected are Russian, Finnish and Canadian forests. One of the most ancient forests in the world - Boreal Forest in Canada - has been halved due to demands from the book publishing industry.

Looking on the bright side, since the year 2000, at least six million books have been published on recycled paper and the number is growing steadily. Random House, Penguin, Egmont in the UK (sadly not in Bulgaria) and Gallimard are among the leaders in green book publishing. They print all or most of their books on recycled or FSC certified paper. Scholastic Inc, the publishers of Harry Potter in the United States, made a huge point by printing the last book on environmentally friendly paper. They estimated that this move saved 220 000 trees. Writers that support green book publishing include JK Rowling, Ian Rankin, Isabel Allende, Margaret Atwood and Yann Martel.

Like so much of this environmental stuff, book publishing also seems to require making a stand. On the one hand, it's the authors who are getting involved, on the other it's us - the readers who need to expect more. It's nothing more than age-old consumer pressure. So here goes - I will write to Phoenix Fiction and let them know that I will not buy their next bestseller unless they make an effort to take care of the environment. And I really don't care if we are talking about the next Harry Potter or something else…