Life Media, the publisher of Natural Life magazine and books under The Alternate Press imprint, has a more than 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 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.

Our books, magazines, and websites 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. Our stringent advertising guidelines prohibit the inclusion of ads for products or services that are harmful to humans or the environment.

While readers gain information and inspiration about how to lessen their ecological footprint, our business activities also demonstrate the principles of healthy, simple, and sustainable living, as well as respectful choices about resource usage.

Since a book and magazine 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. Currently, Natural Life magazine is printed on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paper by a printer that is also FSC-certified, using soy-based inks.

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. FSC is the only forest certification standard supported by organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund Canada, the Sierra Club of Canada, and Greenpeace.

We have drastically reduced the amount of paper used in the traditional subscription renewal process with an innovative mailing procedure that prints each subscriber's renewal information on the recycled content envelope in which magazines are mailed. Our office stationery is tree-free, containing mostly hemp fiber, although we conduct most of our business electronically in order to minimize the use of paper.

Our books are currently printed by a FSC-certified printer on FSC-certified paper that is made from 100% post-consumer waste and is processed chlorine-free. It is Environmental Choice EcoLogo certified and manufactured using biogas energy created from mill waste. The books are mailed to purchasers using recycled or re-used material and no plastic packaging. Our shipping department even uses a postage scale made from hemp plastic! We are committed to producing e-books and audio-books, as a way of further reducing the use of paper.

Natural Life Magazine 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, it is available in a digital version for those who wish to avoid paper altogether, and Life Learning Magazine and Natural Parenting Business Journal are digital-only in order to lessen our environmental impact even further.

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 and plastic bags, extensive recycling and a variety of other initiatives such as a car pooling service for visitors coming from outside the community. Subsequent events included free shuttles from public transit to the site.

Minimizing our environmental footprint involves reducing waste, recycling, minimizing our consumption of water, electricity and fuel, which are also integral parts of our office management practices. Our office uses energy-efficient and natural lighting and our equipment is turned off when not being used. Our purchasing policy includes PVC reduction/elimination and use of recycled, salvaged and locally-produced materials. We are a home-based virtual company, communicating digitally, avoiding environmentally damaging commutes and enhancing family life.

We believe that sustainability is not just about the environment. It is an interconnection of cultural, social, economic, and environmental practices. It means taking care of where we live…and part of that involves building strong communities, with healthy, locally-owned businesses that sell good products at fair prices. To that end, we prefer to sell our books directly to purchasers through our own websites and to local, independent booksellers. We also 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.

The integrity of the information we publish and the ethics of how we run our business are important aspects of our definition of sustainability. We were pioneers in what has since become known as social entrepreneurship or green business: using a business structure to solve social and environmental problems. In addition, our ethics policy ensures we are offering our readers information that is as unbiased as possible, with the result that we forfeit certain kinds of advertising revenue. At the same time, we value cooperation with other information providers. As far back as the early 1980s, we organized joint promotions with other alternative publishers, believing that by working together we can demonstrate and create a market for new ways of doing business.