Since 2004, Petite Planète has worked for Development and Cooperation (d+c), a monthly publication of Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei (FSD). The FSD is itself a subsidiary of the FAZIT Foundation, which publishes a newspaper most people are familiar with: the Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ). Published on behalf of “InWEnt – Capacity Building International”, a German non-profit in the development sector, D+C is an objective, informative publication that dares to include provocative opinions in such a sensitive field as development cooperation. We are proud to be a part of it – and proud that the German government, which receives our taxes, has pledged to devote 0.7% of Germany’s gross national income to development aid – more than double the current level – by 2015 in compliance with UN policy. Generally, only Scandinavia and Benelux comply, with the United States of America devoting a measly 0.11% under the Clinton years, though the figure rose under Bush/Cheney because so much Official Development Aid went to Iraq.

Since 2005, Petite Planète has translated for Heise, Germany’s premier IT publisher; in 2008, The H went live as their English website. Their work often challenges us because they review products so carefully. In a review of USB TV receivers, they made a distinction between Stummelantennen (stub antennas) and Stabantennen (which we translated as “telescope antennas”); we looked at the manufacturers’ English data sheets, and all they spoke of was “antennas”! So we looked at other PC websites and found nothing – everyone merely spoke of antennas; no one else made the distinction Heise made. Heise also measured whether these devices consumed too much power via USB, which can damage your computer – no other IT website that we saw tested that. And then there was this baby, our favorite. We are proud to be associated with Heise.

From 2007 to 2010, Petite Planète translated all of pv magazine, the English sister monthly of the German photovoltaik. The magazine focuses on issues crucial to the photovoltaics sector upstream of consumers; it is thus a pure industry journal. The publisher, Berlin’s Solarpraxis, has been producing graphics-heavy installation manuals, product overviews, etc. since the 1990s. Craig Morris, director of Petite Planète, was also an editor at pv magazine from his office in Freiburg from 2008 to 2010 and regularly contributed to the journal. Petite Planète handled not only all of the translations, but also copy-edited and corrected layouted articles in InCopy and helped the editorial staff in Berlin come up with great covers. Since 2010, Petite Planète has been a supplier to Solarpraxis under the new editor in chief.

In 2009, Petite Planète took over the English translations of neue energie / new energy, a monthly / bimonthly magazine. Though published by Germany’s Wind Energy Association (BWE), the magazine nonetheless covers all issues related to all renewables. We are proud to work with an association that sees the big picture beyond its own business interests and with a journal that consistently digs deep into important, but underreported issues. In addition to providing all of the translations, Petite Planète also handles copy-editing and corrections of layouts for new energy.