If you flip through the pages of any issue of Making, you may notice a recurring theme; we sort of have a thing for nature. Rocks, dirt, trees, plant life, animal life, landscape, we have a deep love for it all. The natural world is our greatest inspiration; it's the backdrop for many of our photos, it's often the image of what we want to mimic with design, and was the theme of our last two issues, DESERT and FOREST.

Nature cares for us in many ways. Within our craft, it provides materials and valuable life lessons – to find stillness and be present. Nature is one of the purest forms of connection between us as human beings; this earth is our only home, a shared home, and we must take our responsibility as stewards seriously. This is a personal passion of ours and here at Making, we're constantly evaluating how we can create balance while providing a quality publication and make improvements in our sustainability practices. 

Making is a print publication, so the first place we looked to improve was the magazine itself. Earlier this year with DESERT, we began using 100% recycled paper.

The next thing we wanted to address is the way we distribute the magazine. Shipping physical products can be a bit of a balancing act because there are several facets to consider. We want to make sure that the items being shipped end up at their destination safely and undamaged. We also want to make sure that the packaging we're using to ship items is sustainable, but this comes at a cost, literally, which is where the balancing comes in to play. In the end, however, as a company, we want to be one that does more good than harm. Right now, we're using bubble mailers with at least 32.6% recycled content. This is good and they cost less, but we want to make more progress. Here's the thing, plastic is a human-made, non-renewable substance that takes a very long time to break down, but never actually biodegrades with it often ends up in landfills and our water systems. This is why we've decided to make a shift with the mailers we use. We've been testing mailers, searching for the best fit that keeps issues safe and are cost effective. Beginning with 2020 subscriptions, we will be using 100% recycled rigid paper mailers.

As we continue to grow and progress, it's only natural for us to continue in our efforts towards being more sustainable. As a company, this is one of the most important things to us. Someday we'd like to reach a point where we use no single use plastic in our shipping and operations (labels, tape, stickers, bags). It's amazing how much of it exists, but we're determined to replace single use plastic wherever we possibly can. 

We know these are small changes, but it's all the small things that contribute to something big, and in this case, that big thing is pretty important. Thank you for bearing with us through the changes so that we can support a more sustainable future.