Known for an uncompromising commitment to organic agriculture and sustainable business practices, Mountain Rose herbs is raising their eco-efforts to new heights by launching a new program aimed at helping employees reduce their carbon footprint.
The new program focuses on preventing pollution caused by commuter traffic by offering cash incentives to employees who carpool and bicycle to work. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, U.S. autos emit more than 333 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, which is more than one-fifth of the nation’s total carbon dioxide emissions. Thankfully, programs like the one offered by Mountain Rose Herbs, can make a real difference.
The program is easy to understand, track and offers tangible awards. It pays staff members who carpool to work 12-cents per mile for each passenger, and for those who bicycle to work, 20-cents per mile. In addition to the cash reward for each mile, Mountain Rose Herbs also offers a yearly $500 cash bonus to the staff member who has logged the most miles.
“We pay our employees in cash for carpooling and bicycling to work. To our knowledge, no other company is offering a cash incentive that reaches the same caliber as ours in the United States,” says Shawn Donnille, Mountain Rose Herbs’ Operations Manager & Director of Quality Control.
The carpool and bicycling to work incentive is just one program in a long line of forward-thinking sustainability programs from Mountain Rose Herbs. As a “Zero Waste” company, Mountain Rose Herbs goes to great lengths to ensure that materials which might be regarded as waste are recycled, re-used, composted, reclaimed, or brought back into the production cycle. Everything is collected and sorted for proper reclamation including the backs of labels, plastic bags, scrap metal from barrels, poly-woven bags, herbal refuse material, buckets, oil and much more! When Mountain Rose Herbs adopted a “Zero Waste” policy, they went from producing about 3,300 gallons of waste per month (a normal amount for a processor) to producing between 80 to 100 gallons per month–the same as a typical four-person household.
To learn more about Mountain Rose Herbs, please visit www.mountainroseherbs.com.





When I was paying at the checkout the lady on the till asked “How many bags have you recycled?” At first I thought this was polite chit-chat and wasn’t sure that I’d heard her correctly. Then she pointed to my bags and said again “How many bags have you recycled?” So I answered “3″ – which I had. Then she said “Well, you get points for not using carrier bags you see. It’s a new reward scheme” and handed me 3 mini fold-out leaflets, which turned out to be vouchers for days out to various UK attractions and theme parks. “Also, you’ve got some money off fuel on your receipt which you need to use within 7 days”.



For daytrippers, the mainline trains stop at the principle south west towns and cities including Taunton, Exeter, Plymouth and Truro. From each of these railway towns you should, in theory, be able to reach further towns and villages in Cornwall and Devon. I wanted to put the theory to the test. Armed with a 70 page public transport guide, I left the train at Bodmin Parkway Station (remembering this time round that the station was a few miles from the town itself) and waited for the hourly Western Greyhound bus to Bodmin. Use
As it turned out, the 
Luckily First Great Western and Virgin Trains have good cycle facilities which means travelling with the bike from wherever you are shouldn’t be a problem. The Cornish Way, part of National cycle route 3, connects Bude to Penzance and Land’s End via St Austell or Newquay. So you should be able to connect to a cycle route simply by alighting at certain stations. Take Bodmin Parkway station again. You can follow a stretch of the route 3 directly from the station and through to the town and out toward Padstow or Camelford, on the famous 
Laura Burgess
Another example of the benefits of eco-tourism is 
I work for the Air Transport Action Group, which is a global cross-industry coalition including airlines, airports, aircraft and engine manufacturers, air traffic controllers, etc. that have decided to coordinate their environmental activities to reduce the impact of aviation on the environment. One of the initiatives we’re working on is called Enviro.aero which aims to illustrate what the entire air transport industry is doing to reduce its environmental impact – we also have a website:
This means you need not avoid holidaying abroad, but you do need to be a responsible traveller. And the first step is often the hardest – when you fly… pack light! Yes, they do make suitcases that can carry your entire wardrobe these days, but wouldn’t it be nicer not to have to enlist a team of fellow travellers to haul your bag off the conveyor belt for once? Think about what you’ll really need to take, rather than how big your weight allowance is, and you’ll probably save a good few kilos.
Whether we’re flying for business or personal reasons, it’s up to us as consumers to work with the industry to minimise the environmental impact of our travels. We shouldn’t have to leave our environmental principles at home when we travel, and I don’t believe we have to. Carefully planned packing, responsible travel to the airport, and a contribution to offsetting your impact will mean that wherever you end up, on a sun-soaked beach or muddy mountain trail, you don’t need to worry about how you got there (until you need to find your way home…).

