Nurturing People, Nature & Spirit
It has been said, "you are what you eat." What we eat is directly transformed into blood, bones, skin, muscle and consciousness. So, where does the food we're eating come from?
Nature's Path believes food, organically grown, is better for you and better for the environment. Organic foods contain no preservatives or additives, and are grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fungicides which agribusiness typically sprays onto our food. These chemicals can then find their way into the soil, water, air and eventually our bodies.
Just as eating wholesome organic food helps to make healthy bodies, organic farming helps make healthy soil and a healthy planet. Our farmland is a thin layer of living earth blanketing the planet and needs to be nurtured and renewed continually. Organic farming practices enrich the soil and improve a farm's biodiversity, resulting in less soil erosion and more drought resistant farmland.
It was Hippocrates who suggested that we let food be our medicine and medicine be our food. Nothing can replace the richness and complexity of nutrients found in a varied diet of fresh, organic whole foods, and Nature's Path™ organic breakfast cereals are a great way to get started, every day.
- Corporate Social Responsibility
“(CSR)…generally refers to an on-going commitment by business to behave ethically and to contribute to economic development when demonstrating respect for people, communities, society at large, and the environment. In short, CSR marries the concept of global citizenship with environmental stewardship and sustainable development.” Business: The Ultimate Resource from Jeffery Hollender’s What Matters Most
At Nature’s Path they see corporate social responsibility as being one in the same as sustainability and the triple-bottom line approach they take to business. They believe that the key to sustainability in business, and indeed to the survival of our planet, is the placement of equal importance upon the social, environmental and financial where social progressiveness and environmental excellence are as important as profitability. This means that they do not maintain systems that use up and discard people (social) and environment (non-renewable resources) in order to make money.
- The result is something that is very near and dear to Nature’s Path; the principle of sustainable and organic agriculture, “take care of the land, and it will take care of you.”
They realize that when doing business it may not be possible to reach 100% sustainability. However, they want to reduce our unsustainable practices to the absolute minimum and find ways of compensating for areas where they cannot achieve total sustainability.
In the end they are very excited about the possibilities of providing a healthy and needed product in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. They also believe that you, their customers, will appreciate that they are supporting these core values, and that together they will forge ahead to a better world. As a company in the natural and organic food industry, they feel that they are doing the right thing for the right reasons. Now it’s a matter of learning how to do the right thing in the best way possible.
- Nature’s Path Sustainability Statement
Sustainability is where our future lies if we wish to survive as a people, as a society and as a company. As each of us lives our tiny moment in history, we must bear the imprint of sustainability in all that we do. At Nature’s Path they envision themselves as leaders respectfully moving toward a more secure and healthy world.
- Nature’s Path is committed to producing products which support the development and sustenance of organic agriculture. They aim to do this in a way that minimizes their ecological footprint while striving to maintain social, environmental and financial integrity.
Here are just a few examples of what they're doing to help live up to these values:
- Project Sunlight!
Besides saving electricity by installing skylights in their head office, most employees prefer natural light to fluorescent lights. It has been reported that there are less headaches, eyestrain, and flu symptoms when not exposed to artificial lighting for extensive periods of time each day. This allows most Nature's Pathers to work in a happier environment, while saving electricity!
- Organic Biodiversity
One of the impacts of farming is that it has the power to protect and increase (or destroy) natural biodiversity of mammals, insects, microbiological lifeforms in the soil, and the genetic biodiversity of our plant species. One of the reasons they’ve chosen organic because it protects biodiversity.
- Recycle Line Spills for Use by Local Farmers
They donate all unusable spills from their manufacturing line to local farmers, thereby reducing their trips to the landfill.
- Composting of Employee Food Waste
They believe in reducing waste in as many ways as possible. To this end they have created a composting program for staff food waste at their head office. They use this compost to fertilize their organic grain demonstration field on the side of their building. They plan on extending this program to all of their locations.
- Computer and Equipment Recycling Program
With a quickly growing staff and efforts to keep-up technologically they want to increase their recycling of obsolete office equipment. Current they donate their old computers to employees for home use.
- Organic Acres Used
Every time Nature's Path makes and sells an organic product land is kept under organic stewardship. When their product sales increase - the organic acreage increases, thereby saving more land from chemical contamination and unsustainable use.
- Investing in Renewable Energy
They recognize two ways of addressing electrical power usage as a responsible sustainability company. One is to reduce the use, and the other is to use electricity that has been generated using environmentally friendly and renewable sources. To this end, 35% of the power from their Blaine facility comes from wind power.
- Packaging Reduction Program
At Nature's Path they have always been concerned about their use of packaging. They offer bulk Eco-Pacs of most of their cereal and always use recycled cardboard. In order to further their commitment they have begun to resize their regular sized cereal boxes which will reduce the packaging by 10% without reducing product volume. They are also looking into biodegradable or compost-friendly "plastic" liners.
- Carbon off-sets
They recently had their carbon foot-print measured by the folks at Eco Neutral and have committed to off-setting a portion of their green house gas emissions through the work they do in repairing damaged eco-systems. Natural photosynthetic processes that occur in healthy ecosystems are currently the only viable way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
