What in the world is Women's Adventure doing about the environment?

Women's Adventure and our parent Big Earth Publishing recognize the importance of a healthy planet and lifestyles that preserve, protect and better understand our planet and its varied, interconnected ecosystems. Our staff and our readers thrive and treasure the outdoors. We delight in exploring and enjoying lands both familiar and unfamiliar. We actively seek ways to lessen our impact on the land, sea and air through conscious decisions at home, at play and at our place of business. As custodians of our planet for future generations, like campers leaving a wilderness campsite, we must take the time and make the effort to leave our planet in better condition when we depart than it was when we arrived.

Owing to the nature of publishing, we are selecting more environmentally-friendly printing for our magazines. In the coming months and years, our selection of inks, paper and printers will reflect a growing environmental awareness in the printing industry. Vegetable inks are replacing mineral inks, recycled paper with higher percentages of post-waste content is increasingly available, and printers are taking important steps to reduce waste in their shops and participating in industry environmental awareness organizations. Our selection of printers for the magazine and for our subscriber and marketing materials must reflect this reality.

As a business, our physical office will increasingly include an environmental awareness in our choices of lighting, heating and cooling, office products and practices. Our selection of our office space reflects our growing environmental knowledge, as does our policies of encouraging alternate transportation to and from the office for our employees. Staff members are encouraged to take public transportation, walk, bike or carpool to the office, with free public transportation passes provided to full time employees. In selecting office products, environmentally-friendly products with reduced packaging are increasingly selected. We also encourage recycling of paper, plastic and other products through a vigorous office recycling plan.

Reducing our carbon footprint both as a business and as individuals is important to us. To combat global warming and the growing extremes of weather worldwide, we recognize that everyone must take steps to become more globally-conscious. All of us must reduce our use of carbon fuels and products that lead to an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our planet's atmosphere. As a species, we must adapt to survive, even if our choices are not easy, simple or immediately possible.

The outdoors and the availability of wild spaces and lands are important to us. Women's Adventure is a role-model for our readers and other publishers through our love of the wild and our sensible environmental choices.

So what's the staff doing about it?

We asked everyone working for Women's Adventure what they were working on....

Michelle
I run my son in his BOB stroller to his day care 2 miles away.

Karina
I ride the bus to work and keep my bike at the office to tool around town.

Lynne
We've moved in town. It was a wrench to give up our mountain home but we just couldn't keep commuting that long distance anymore.

Bryn
I carpool to work and bike on some days (16 miles each way!), buy local produce, and best of all, bought my parents reusable water bottles and convinced them to stop buying bottled water!

Randi
When I go out for coffee, I use my own coffee mug. At the store, I use my own shopping bags.

Alex
I have taken Colorado's Regional Air Quality Council's Pledge to Chill. Check it out at ozoneaware.org

Corrynn
My faithful Schwinn gets me everywhere around town.

Christian
We have solar panels on our house.

Joanna
I always bring my grocery bags with me.

Mariko
Clothes dryers are a big energy drain, so I decided to buy some clotheslines - I actually find hanging laundry quite relaxing. I also bring my own bags to the grocery store.

Rick
Commuting from Denver each day to the Women's Adventure offices in Boulder, I take the regional bus to save on personal gasoline consumption. Our parent company, Big Earth Publishing, provides an Eco Pass for all full time employees. The pass allows for unlimited use of Denver area public transportation - local and regional buses, along with light rail. In the coming years, as rail lines are extended from Denver to Boulder, I am hopeful I can switch to commuting by rail.

Susan
I commute to work and run errands on my bike but I have an awful time remembering to conserve water, especially in the kitchen. I think clean water is going to be our biggest challenge in the coming decade.

Melissa
I police my family about making sure to recycle everything, turn off lights, unplug computers. I ask them "what would Al Gore do?..." I was raised frugally so it's ingrained in me to conserve energy. Also, we switched from regular light bulbs to florescent/ Energy Star ones through out our house.

Krisan
It turns out I am a creature of habit, once I create a routine for myself I tend to stick with it. The hardest part is starting the pattern, but I now ride my bike all around town, bring my own grocery sacks, recycle and reuse what I can, turn off the lights and my computer when not in use (I even unplug it when I remember) and the next habit I am trying to get into is remembering to bring my own coffee cup when I get my afternoon pick me up. Last summer I bought a share of a local farm through www.localharvest.org and enjoyed amazing local organic produce, and this year it is my goal to have my own garden bed built and ready to plant by next spring and my own compost ready to go by then.

Sue
First off, we no longer use air-conditioning in our home and cars. After reading about the impact it had on the environment, we turned it off and have been happily hot ever since. We also, always bring our own bags to the market. When I forget them in the car, my kids give me a hard enough until one of us runs out to get them. While shopping we do not to buy products with too much extra packaging thinking that the companies are wasteful and we do not want to support them. We have a garden at home where we grow lettuce, tomatoes, basil, snap peas, carrots and more. At the market, we try to buy mostly organic foods to protect not only our bodies, but the environment as well. Finally, we often bike to town on our bikes for dinner and some light errands.