NEW YORK (AP) &#8212 Simon & Schuster has become the latest publisher to get greener, announcing “a new environmental initiative and paper policy that will dramatically increase the amount of recycled fiber in the paper used to manufacture its books.”

“Simon & Schuster will endeavor to eliminate the use of paper that may contain fiber from endangered and old-growth forest areas,” the publisher said Wednesday in a statement. “It has set a goal that by 2012 at least 10 percent of its purchased paper will derive from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.”

Simon & Schuster’s many authors include Stephen King, David McCullough and Bob Woodward.

Numerous publishers have launched environmental programs in recent years. In 2006, Random House Inc. announced a planned tenfold increase in its use of recycled paper.

Last March, Scholastic Inc. said that it would work with the Rainforest Alliance, a conservation organization, on tightened environmental standards for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the final book of J.K. Rowling’s popular multimillion- selling series.

Simon & Schuster will be working with the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit organization that has worked on other book projects, including a Bible published this fall by Thomas Nelson Inc. that uses only recycled and Forest Stewardship Council-approved paper.