Beyond Green 

We are all familiar with the standard stories about sustainability. We consider it necessary to re-examine an issue that is rarely discussed in this context: Nature exhausted to supply healthy products.

Big Vita

The complementary and alternative medicine market was valued at $82.27 billion in 2020, with an expected growth rate of 22% from 2021 to 2028. Long gone are the days of the local hippie health food store. 1 in 5 Americans use herbal products. Health food is big business. We coin the term Big Vita to describe this, especially since several of the worst corporations own major supplement brands. What do Pfizer, Nestle, Procter & Gamble and other destructive trans-national corporations have to do with creating health?

Nature, Exhausted.

The growing interest in health and alternatives to conventional practices has a dark side. Due to ever-increasing demand, plants and other medicinal materials are being driven to endangered or threatened status.

Arnica montana, the most popular homeopathic remedy, is on the endangered or threatened list in all its native habitats. A. montana is only viable as a wild plant, it does not cultivate well. Manufacturers are relying on other species of arnica to make their products. Black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa/Actea racemosa), Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), Echinacea spp, American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng), Wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria), Wild yam (Dioscorea villosa), Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis) and Slippery elm (Ulmus rubra) are a few of the more popular plants that are on this list.

The devastation of plant species for the healthcare market is not widely discussed. It is more common to hear of animal species that are being poached for chinese medicine than of the much more common plant species devastation. The current rates of consumption of these species, to say nothing of 22% annual growth, is not sustainable.

Forging a New Path

This is one of the reasons why aetherea was formed. The complex information field method that we use to create our products allows native species to return to healthy status. Our products consume no physical materials - plants, crystals, elements, etc. This was a conscious choice by our founder when aetherea was created. We propose our method as a reference standard for what Sustainability needs to be for the 21st Century.

Read more about how we create our products.

aetherea, LLC maintains a serious commitment to sustainability. We reuse, recycle and minimize our usage of resources wherever possible.

Energy usage

• Our facility is lit with LED lighting. Wherever possible, we use low power computers. 
• The instruments we use to create our products consumes no electricity. 

Re-use

• We re-use most of the cardboard boxes and packing we receive. All else is used for sheet mulching and compost. The non re-usable cardboard - cardboard with non-soy inks typically - is recycled.
• The packing peanuts we receive in packing materials sent to us are re-used by our packing and shipping department.
• The paper we use in the office/lab is made from recycled material and is re-used whenever possible. 
• When technical equipment has reached the end of its life, it is taken to a facility that responsibly recycles the components.