Life Media, the owner of Natural Life Books, has a thirty-five-year-old commitment to promoting the need to sustain our planet and our society into the future. Upon our founding in 1976, we identified a number of interwoven themes that constitute the basis for the sustainability of life on Earth, and decided that they would be the basis of our publishing endeavors, starting first with Natural Life Magazine. Our business activities demonstrate the principles of healthy, simple and sustainable living and respectful choices about resource usage. But we believe that sustainability is not just about the environment; it is an interconnection of practices that includes building strong communities with healthy, locally-owned businesses that sell good products at fair prices.

Since a publishing company uses a great deal of paper, we have always made it a priority to use environmentally sound processes and paper, including a mix of paper that is post-consumer recycled, tree-free, non-chlorine bleached, and preserving of old-growth forests. Our books are now printed by a FSC-certified printer on FSC-certified paper that is made from 100% post-consumer waste. As well as guaranteeing the recycled content, FSC is the highest standard of forest certification, protecting wildlife habitat and endangered species, ensuring clean water by protecting lakes and waterways, and prohibiting the use of genetically modified trees. FSC also requires companies to involve local communities and Aboriginal peoples in the development of forest management plans. Our book paper is also processed chlorine-free, Environmental Choice EcoLogo certified and manufactured using biogas energy created from mill waste. We give preference to locally-based suppliers in order to minimize the environmental costs of long-distance transportation and to keep money circulating in our local community.

We prefer to sell directly to customers through this website in order to reduce the amount of transportation required for each book. When we do deal with local, independent booksellers, we do not encourage the normal industry practice of overstocking because overstocked copies are often damaged and end up recycled, or invoke further greenhouse gas pollution to be returned when they don't sell. We avoid selling through large, multinational, monopolistic corporate websites that do not support local businesses, and that are contributing to the demise of local booksellers and small, independent publishers like us.

Minimizing the Life Media environmental footprint involves reducing waste, water consumption, electricity and fuel, as well as recycling. These are all integral parts of our office management practices. For instance, our office stationery is tree-free, containing mostly hemp fiber, although we conduct as much business as possible electronically in order to minimize the use of paper. The books are mailed to purchasers using recycled or re-used material. Our shipping department even uses a postage scale made from hemp plastic!

To ensure that Life Media remains focused on these principles, we evaluate this statement periodically and continue to educate ourselves about the leading edge of sustainability best practices.