Wending the Green Way
I love magazines and I love travel but not every travel magazine does it for me. My eyes start to glaze over at the terrible sameness of so many resorts, while my heart sinks at the knowledge that the “paradise” they are selling is all too often actually a former one.
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, with a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot. – Joni Mitchell
You won’t find a bikini model on the front of Wend Magazine. It’s mainly focused on adventure travel – from hiking the Andes to skiing Japan. But it also has a strong environmental theme – one of the articles in the current issue is about a sailing expedition to the site of a marine plastic disaster in the North Pacific Ocean. There’s a section called Greenery devoted to sustainable design and a section called Platform devoted to an environmental non-profit organization.
The print magazine is printed on paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council – meaning it comes from sustainably managed forests – with soy-based inks. Subscribers can also opt for a paperless digital subscription – especially green if you live on the other side of the world (it’s a US-based magazine). The website also has a lot of additional content such as podcasts.
I really like the look of Wend but I must confess I found the digital edition hard to read. It would work well on a desktop with a large screen but it was a bit unwieldy on my small laptop screen – I either had to squint at tiny type, or enlarge it and navigate with the browser arrows. Try it out for yourself – maybe you’ll fare better with the digital edition than I did. If not, but you like the content, at least you know the paper product is also ethically sound (though it would be nice to see an upgrade to recycled paper at some point).
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Questions to Ask Your Printer
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Great Green Reading with Digital Magazines
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Travel Green in NZ
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The Facts About Paper
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6 Comments
February 24th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Hi Caitlin:
Stiv here, Editor at Wend. Thanks for the kind words, and don’t worry, we’re working on improving the digital version greatly for the same reasons you state. But, hey, FSC certified paper is THE BEST, recycled paper is further down the totem pole of sustainability. The reason is this: When you print on FSC paper, you know that a tree cut down is a tree planted, and that it doesn’t come from Old Growth forests, or employs clearcutting as a method. Our paper is essentially ‘farmed.’ Recycled paper is better than virgin sources, but recycling old growth forest isn’t doing the old growth forest any favors. It is our opinion that recycling, though good, isn’t a solution to forest management, because essentially, all you’re doing is delaying deforestation by one generation of paper. Indeed, we use the greenest paper that exists, and its sourced and printed locally.
But thanks for the shout out!
February 24th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Thanks for the review Caitlin!
I just wanted to clarify something about the paper that Wend is printed on for EcoSalon readers.
Wend is printed on 100% FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper which ensures that all wood is harvested sustainably, be it recycled content or virgin. The paper used in Wend is made of mixed sources: recycled and virgin. Even if you print on 100% recycled paper, if it originates from unsustainably harvested forests, then it’s hard to say that you are doing your part to protect them. That’s why Wend believes in using 100% FSC certified paper, even though it is a blend of recycled and virgin fibers.
To learn more about the FSC check out the website: http://www.fscus.org/
February 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Hey Stiv! Thanks for stopping in to say hello. Interesting point about the paper.
February 24th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Hi there,
Thanks for the comment. I know that FSC paper has a lot of good points to it and I’m very glad that you’re supporting it . However, I have to disagree that it comes further down the food chain than recycled paper. I’ve actually done a lot of writing about the printing industry and studies have concluded that recycled paper is environmentally superior on many levels, although FSC has a role to play when virgin fiber is needed.
I started to elaborate on this but I think it might be a good topic for a post in its own right so perhaps I’ll send you the link when I do. Please feel free to email me if you have any evidence you would like me to consider! It’s not a straightforward thing and there are definitely pros and cons of both.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:55 am
I did, in fact, do the follow-up post. Sorry for not linking to it sooner: http://www.ecosalon.com/the-facts-about-paper/
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