Politicians concerned about the climate change and the environment ought to take a look at the Australian magazine distribution model.
Every week we remove several trolley loads of unsold magazines from our shelves and either dump them for recycling or create more carbon emissions by returning unsold stock to the supplier warehouse. I am sure that this process is repeated in newsagencies across the country.
Beyond the labour, real-estate and opportunity cost to newsagents of magazines which fail to sell, there is a significant cost to the environment of the current magazine distribution model:
- The carbon footprint of overseas magazine titles being freighted to Australia is significant when compared to locally printed titles. Do we really need an overseas title competing with a locally produced title?
- The carbon footprint of a returns system which requires around half of unsold stock to be returned to the magazine distributor – presumably to be sent somewhere else for a second crack at a sale – is for dubious economic value.
- The wastage of unsold stock which is left to be trashed locally. Not all unsold magazines are recycled. There is also the carbon cost of sending this underperforming stock in the first place to be considered.
If you take the top 200 magazines out of the mix you soon see a serious level of paper and carbon waste in the magazine distribution model. There are titles which consistently sell under 50% of what are sent to many newsagencies. While complaints always bring out excuses, there is no excuse which justifies such waste and damage to the environment.
There is no penalty on magazine distributors for supplying more magazines than they know will sell. Some publishers operate under a model where underperforming titles do not harm their bottom line. This lack of a penalty could be a factor in the environmental laziness of the model.
I would welcome politicians (the Greens with the balance of power in the Senate from next year?) to look at the magazine model from the perspective of its impact on the environment for this would bring issues of concern to newsagents into focus.
There ought to be an acceptable return percentage agreed and a penalty imposed, to be paid to newsagents, for titles which do not meet this minimum standard. Further, such titles ought to be able to be recycled locally rather than returned as full copy returns.
This is good an avenue of investigation for newsagents – pursuing the magazine model as an environmental issue rather than purely a newsagent economics issue.
I raised this with Bob Brown’s office during the election and plan to raise it again once the current dust storm settles.
Mark, that is a brilliant statement. Yes, lets see if those politicions will do anything about that. Probably really don’t care though as that will be helping small business, I still can’t see any of them wanting to do that!
i don’t believe in climate change, but living harmony with the environment.
i sold 1 ebay magazine last year and today received 5 , a cross wrod book that came in today i nromally sell 4 normally receive 6 today 12 arrived . a bit more waste for the enviroment
If politicians refuse to act, we can always turn to TV stations, i’m sure they’d love the story. maybe just maybe, it would create enough of reaction that these politicians jump in to the spotlight and do something.
bottom line: we need to create awareness. we need public support/sympathy to be heard. sad but true.
Mark: very good work. i think it is a good start and the right way to go. thanks.
On the other hand I find it slow to increase supply of some mags for sugagent supply. I wonder just how much profit we do actually make. I have to pay $40.00 a week to dumps mags and pay staff to handle these. Its not just wasted pocket space. I must chace up my green party brother on this one.
Just found out supermarket now scans their returns and doesnt have to return anything. Why do newsagents have to pay to return then? Some level playing field. And what is our associations doing about this
in my opinion, forget fighting this from a business point of view.
just argue from an environmental point of view, especially now that going green and carbon footprint has become a hot topic. we stand a better chance of an environment friendly politician stepping in to stop all these wastage of paper.
the consequence of stopping all these wastage of paper will result in what we have been wanting all along, less oversupply.
when the time comes, every single one of us can provide easy proof of all the wastage. just take a photo of the trolleys full of returns, send it all. overwhelming evidence. and they cannot deny it.
just an alternate way of reaching our goal =) just my 2 cents.
My point exactly ED.
The wastage is pulped and recycled and that would be their defence. Although the subect hits on political correctness it does little for our business solutions.
Our problem is still financial, environment is a political matter and a most important one. Let’s not try to make one the other.
We have failed to address the financial matter. By pursuing this an an evironmental matter we have another avenue of pursuit.
Recycling only addresses the paper part of the problem and not the carbon problem of failing overseas titles.
to Graeme:from my point of view it is like this
our financial concerns = non retailers/ordinary people won’t care
no enough people make a fuss= no politician jump in to act and everything is swept under the rug.
environmental issue = everyone is concerned
everyone concerned = politicians want to get in on the act and earn some points with the public.
also, if i may add the reason the idea was suggested is because we are being ignored by publishers/distributors. this is just a way to get their attention and while we are at it, can do some good for the environment as well.
what have we got to lose? worst case they still ignore us?
ED,
thanks for your answer it is a political one and I understand however it is a small e in Environment issues a bit like pushing a snowball uphill in a blizzard.