Hasadri Freeman

Simon & Schuster UK

As a Production Assistant at Simon & Schuster UK, Hasadri has used her Publishing Sustainability Academy apprenticeship to identify practical opportunities to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and strengthen sustainability capability across the organisation.

One of her most significant projects examined the impact of "bad extents" in book production, where specific page counts create avoidable print and paper costs. Through detailed analysis of adult frontlist titles, Hasadri found that a percentage of titles were produced at bad extents, representing a significant inefficient spend in print and paper costs. Her research identified a potential annual saving through targeted adjustments to typesetting and page extent management. The project also equipped teams with evidence to make more informed production decisions and highlighted opportunities to reduce paper use, transport impacts and associated emissions.

Building on this work, Hasadri collaborated with printers, typesetters and sustainability specialists to explore innovative approaches capable of reducing page extents by up to 20%. These partnerships strengthened knowledge sharing between internal teams and suppliers while creating new opportunities for future cost and carbon reductions.

Alongside this, Hasadri benchmarked Simon & Schuster UK's ESG communications against leading publishers, providing valuable insight that helped inform conversations around the organisation's future sustainability strategy. She also played a role in rethinking how resources are managed during the company's office move, developing a proposed archive and library system designed to reduce duplicate file copies, improve accessibility and support more efficient use of shared space.

Together, these projects have not only identified opportunities for cost and resource savings but have also helped strengthen collaboration, support better decision-making and embed sustainability more deeply within day-to-day business operations.

“The apprenticeship has given me extraordinary access to the business and its staff in a way that I wouldn’t have had otherwise in my standard entry level role; I’ve been able to ‘get in the room’ to join key conversations on ESG policy. I’ve also investigated sustainability through the lens of people, conducting independent research into diversity, entry routes, and working practices in our sector. I’d encourage anyone joining to consider the broad umbrella of ‘sustainability’—something you’re passionate about might very well fall under it.”

Matthew Dagwell

Hachette UK

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Rachel Evans

Cambridge University Press & Assessment

Through her Publishing Sustainability Academy apprenticeship at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, Rachel has helped embed sustainability into products, events and colleague engagement, creating practical benefits across the organisation.

As part of World Environment Day, Rachel played a key role in planning and delivering a programme of sustainability activities designed to educate and inspire colleagues. From coordinating logistics and organising plant-based catering to supporting interactive talks and workshops, she played an important role in creating opportunities for colleagues to learn about sustainable practices and connect around shared environmental goals.

Rachel further contributed to organisational learning by presenting at a Sustainability in Content panel, sharing findings from a review of OCR exam content. The session helped connect colleagues across different product groups, increase awareness of sustainability in educational content and strengthen internal networks focused on climate education and sustainable publishing practices.

Building on this work, Rachel reviewed Cambridge OCR’s ExamBuilder platform and identified opportunities to make future digital products more sustainable and accessible. Her recommendations focused on reducing duplicate content, enabling more efficient document layouts and supporting double-sided printing, all of which could reduce document size, lower paper use and improve the user experience.

Collectively, Rachel's projects have strengthened colleague engagement, encouraged greater collaboration across teams and helped embed sustainability into both organisational culture and product development, creating lasting value for the business and its stakeholders.

“The sustainability apprenticeship has been a rewarding experience, giving me the opportunity to make an impact both in my day-to-day role and across the wider organisation. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to work with different teams and explore different areas of sustainability, including digital sustainability, community engagement and climate education. It has been really interesting to see the different ways that sustainability can be related to my role from improving processes and implementing digital sustainability habits to looking at our content itself and how sustainability can be embedded into exam questions.”