How We Work
A senior team backed by a specialist network.
The Team Model
Every Green Ink project is managed by the core senior team. The people who manage your project have institutional knowledge built over thousands of projects across nearly three decades. They know what works, what causes delays and what the common failure points are in complex multilingual publishing.
Around this core team, we maintain a curated network of specialist associates – professionals selected to match the specific requirements of each project. The match is deliberate: we consider sector expertise, language capability, format experience and timeline availability before assigning anyone to your work.
Our associate network includes:
- Writers and editors – substantive editors, copy-editors, proofreaders and technical writers with deep subject-matter knowledge in public health, climate and environmental issues, agriculture and forestry, natural resources management, development and humanitarian issues, sustainability and so on
- Graphic designers – publication designers, typographers and layout specialists experienced in complex, multi-component documents including right-to-left and non-Latin scripts
- Translators – experienced, native language, development-sector specialist translators with long-standing working relationships with Green Ink, covering French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Bahasa Indonesia, German and more
- Data visualisation specialists – infographic designers, cartographers and data analysts who can transform complex datasets into clear, accurate visual narratives
This model means you get the consistency and quality control of a dedicated in-house team, combined with the specialist depth and surge capacity of a much larger operation. We scale up for large projects and scale down for small ones – without the overhead of maintaining a large permanent staff.
Use of Technology
We keep up to date and we use appropriate technology where it improves quality and efficiency – always with expert human oversight and checks. For instance for regular clients we develop sophisticated macros that ensure compliance with their specific style guide. We also use AI tools where they genuinely improve efficiency and consistency – not as a substitute for editorial skill, but as a way to remove the friction around it. Our AI-augmented workflows handle formatting standardisation, style-sheet consistency checks, reference verification, cross-referencing validation and metadata tagging. These are tasks that are time-consuming and error-prone when done manually, but well-suited to automated assistance.
The editorial judgements remain with people. Subject-matter interrogation – questioning whether a claim is supported by the evidence cited, whether a recommendation follows logically from the analysis, whether a data point looks plausible – requires human expertise. Design decisions, quality assurance and the nuanced interpretation of house style and institutional tone are all human responsibilities. AI handles the mechanical; people handle the meaningful. Everything is carefully checked.
This approach means our clients get faster turnaround times without any reduction in editorial quality. The senior editor reviewing your publication is focusing their time on substance and judgement, not on checking whether every table number is sequential or every abbreviation is spelled out at first use.
Of course if your organisational policy or preference is to avoid AI use altogether then we have the skills to do everything manually and are happy to follow a human-only workflow for you.
Engagement Models
Three ways to work with us – from ad hoc single projects to full publications management. Choose the model that matches your publishing volume and operational needs or let us know your preferred approach.
Project by project ad hoc
We supply a fixed-price quote based on scope and timeline. Send us your terms of reference, a project brief or a manuscript and let us know what you want help with, and we assess, quote and deliver. Much of our work operates this way – it is straightforward, transparent and gives you a clear, fixed cost (for a fixed scope) and timeline before any work begins. You get a named project manager, a defined deliverable and no ambiguity about what is included or about costs. The budget won’t shift unless the scope is changed. This model suits organisations with occasional or intermittent publishing needs or those testing the relationship before committing to a longer-term arrangement.
Retainer or framework agreement
Ongoing editorial and design support at agreed rates (either for specific outputs or hourly), with the option for guaranteed capacity reserved for your organisation. You get priority access to the senior team and our associate network, faster response times and known rates so that you can budget with no need to go through full procurement per project. We learn your house style, your institutional preferences and your approval workflows – and that accumulated knowledge makes every subsequent project faster and more accurate. This model is ideal for organisations with a steady stream of publications and a need for consistent quality and availability throughout the year.
Managed publications service
We take over your entire publications function – commissioning, editing, design, translation, accessibility compliance, production management and delivery. Your team focuses on content and policy; we handle everything from finding authors and consultants, to developing the manuscript to finished product. This suits organisations that need a high volume of quality output without building or maintaining an in-house editorial and design operation. We become, in effect, your publications department – with the specialist skills, surge capacity and quality infrastructure that would be prohibitively expensive to replicate internally.