Sustainability Statement
Our Company Vision
Life Media, the owner of Natural Life Books, has a
thirty-six-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 continue to 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.
Print Books
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 currently 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.
Electronic Publishing
All of our titles are available as e-books.
While there are conflicting studies about the ecological damage of
e-books versus those printed on paper, we encourage practices that
minimize the environmental impact of e-reading. You can read
about that here.
Purchasing our Books
We prefer to sell directly to our customers for a variety of
reasons. In the case of print books, it reduces the amount of handling
and carbon-creating transportation when you purchase directly from the
source. You may buy through your favorite
local, independent bookseller, but they might have to special order for
you (which can take a month or more). We discourage the
normal industry practice of overstocking books because many copies are
inevitably damaged and end up recycled, or invoke further greenhouse gas
pollution to be returned to us if they don't sell.
We do not sell 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. You can
read more about that here.
Our Office Practices
Minimizing the Life Media environmental footprint
involves reducing waste, water consumption, electricity and fuel, as
well as recycling and reusing materials. These are all integral
parts of our office management practices. For instance, our office
stationery has been tree-free since the mid-1990s, containing mostly
hemp fiber, although we conduct as much business as possible
electronically in order to minimize the use of paper. We avoid
plastic packaging and our books are mailed using re-used material or
ones with high post-consumer content. Our shipping department even
uses a postage scale made from hemp plastic!
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. Our purchasing policy includes PVC
reduction/elimination and use of recycled and salvaged materials. We
are a home-based virtual company, communicating digitally, avoiding
environmentally damaging commutes and enhancing family life.
Ongoing Commitment
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.
