The original natural family living magazine, founded in 1976. Natural Life is trusted
by readers around the world who want to learn how to create a greener,
healthier, more sustainable lifestyle for themselves and for their families.
  
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Sustainability StatementNatural Life magazine has a three-decade 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 good life on Earth. These include: appreciation and protection of resources, both natural and human-made, promotion of physical and emotional health, and working toward peaceful interactions in our communities and beyond. We promote the most authentic version of conservation-based living, avoiding "greenwash" at all costs. Our ethics policy ensures that our editorial is based on solid information that is not influenced in any way by encouragements to purchase unneeded products. While publishing information that we believe helps people gain information and inspiration about how to lessen their ecological footprint, our business activities also demonstrate the principles of healthy, simple and sustainable living and respectful choices about resource usage. Since a publishing company uses a great deal of paper, we have always made it a priority to use environmentally sound products, including a mix of paper that is post-consumer, tree-free and preserving of old-growth forests. Currently, Natural Life is printed on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paper, which preserves old-growth forests and contains a large percentage of post-consumer recycled content. We pay an extra fee to ensure that undeliverable copies are returned to us whole from the post office, rather than being trashed or recycled. Our office stationery is tree-free, containing mostly hemp fiber. Our books are mailed using recycled or re-used material and no plastic packaging other than to recycle material that has been sent to us by other companies. Our shipping department even uses a postage scale made from hemp "plastic!" Natural Life is for sale by subscription and on newsstands, rather than being given out for free, which ensures a commitment from our readers and reduces wasted copies. Our readers tell us that they keep their magazines for many years for reference and/or share them with a large circle of friends and colleagues, again diverting them from the waste stream and recycling programs. Additionally, the magazine is available in online versions for those who wish to avoid the paper version altogether. In the 1990s, we pioneered the idea of waste-free events. Environmentally-friendly aspects of the first Natural Life Festival in 1997 included worm composting of all food waste, food vendors serving food with reusable or compostable plates/utensils (including, in one case, on banana leaves), a prohibition on vendor paper brochures, extensive recycling, and a variety of other initiatives. Reducing waste, recycling, minimizing our consumption of water, electricity and fuel are also integral parts of our office management practices. As a virtual company, those who work with us operate from their own - often home-based - offices, communicating digitally, avoiding environmentally damaging commutes and enhancing family life. To ensure that we remain focused on these practices and aware of better ones, we evaluate our practices periodically and continue to educate ourselves about the leading edge of sustainability best practice. |
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