Why We Are Green

In the world today, " Green", "Eco", " Fair Trade", and " Sustainable", are words that have become prominent in business and commerce. These words have become important through the recognition that our environment, communities and individual lives are all very inner connected and dependent on the well being of all. With these phrases being marketed heavily and now seeming almost as catch phases, we would like to pose and answer the question of: What is green, fair trade and what that means to us?

To us "Green" is not only the values that uphold the environment, but it is being committed to expanding our understanding of our biodynamics and how this understanding can be employed. Green to us, is living each day with the questions: What is our impact? Are we being accountable for our actions? How can we be in service to support the whole?

We have created Liquid Fire Mantra to be a sustainable company by running our business with solar power and using bio-diesel for our vehicle. We print all our promotional material on recycled paper and use green printing that is done with soy ink and powered by wind power, www.greenerprinters.com. We use 100 % recycled paper for printing, our jewelry boxes, bags and packing material. We choose to educate through our designs and art, the inter-connectivity of our lives. We offer our catalog and all of our ordering online to reduce paper. We choose to support other businesses that uphold high environmental standards. We donate proceeds of our business to non profit organizations that are committed to restoring our local native landscape. Check them out; www.lomakatsi.com

We have committed to finding new and better ways to run our business in a "green" fashion. An example is this year we chose to release our catalog, price sheets and order forms on CD to cut the amount of paper used and the waste of reprinting. We Continue to research on how to do our production with recycled metals and renewable resources.We strive to improve the environmental practices of our workers in Bali through education and example.

Fair Trade

Fair Trade is another term that we find as we shop and make choices every day. Since fair trade is the relations of people to business, we would like to recognize that " Fair Trade" is unique to each business as each culture has it's unique relationship to the world.

Fair Trade in our business means that we evaluate each one of our business relationships individually and to each individual needs. This is created through direct and intimate relationships with each one of our workers, employees and colleagues.

We have taken the time to ask what their needs are as it pertains to their society and life style, not ours. We ensure all people whom work with us fair wages that they can live on comfortably. We strive to preserve our workers culture by supporting their creative expression, learning and practicing their way of life.Because of these practices, we have established very loyal long-term relations with the family’s we work with, some of whom we have worked with since 2003. We regularly check in with them, to insure that all there needs are provided for. On September 2007 one of our carvers newborn daughter was hospitalized, we helped him financially to insure she would get the medical care that she needed. Today she is bright and healthy. We will continue to offer our support to these wonderful families.

Faire trade is a win, win way of practicing business and we are committed to applying this to all aspects of our business.

Thank you for taking the time to understand what faire trade means to us.

Forest and Cassandra

Liquid Fire Mantra