This weekend's convention in Los Angeles will include much discussion about the environment. Three panels will review recent trends and initiatives and a featured speaker, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, will promote his new book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America."

Virtually every major publisher, from Random House Inc. to Scholastic Inc., has announced environmental goals, mostly through the increased use of recycled paper and fibre from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international environmental organization. But the revolution has not quite arrived at BookExpo.

Around 30,000 event guides, just over 40 pages long, will be distributed at the Los Angeles Convention Center, along with 19,000 copies of the 700-page program guide. More than 10 million pages in all will be printed, none on recycled paper. "I'm very proud of the green programming that we created this year at the show," BookExpo vice president and show manager Lance Fensterman told The Associated Press. "Earlier in the year we had thought about doing even more green programming at BEA. But we felt that until we started being more green ourselves, it was not entirely right to proclaim the virtues of being green.

"We are fully aware that improvement can be made in our green related efforts," he acknowledged. Fensterman said that BookExpo, produced by Reed Exhibitions, welcomes any "constructive suggestions." He will likely hear from Tyson Miller, founder and director of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit program that has worked extensively with publishers on environmental issues. Miller sees "an opportunity for the convention to do more about practising what it preaches." "The small things add up and environmental leadership and action is something that perpetuates itself," says Miller, who will moderate an environmental panel at BEA.