We often hear the word “sustainability,” but what does it actually mean? Sustainability is defined as “the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.”. You may be thinking, “How does this relate to botanical medicine?” This is a much broader and nuanced topic because there’s a lot to consider.
Sustainability with botanicals ranges from personal use to applications with clients or in a business setting. You have the freedom to choose botanical suppliers that align with your personal values and needs. However, when sourcing botanicals for others or for a business, there are numerous factors to take into account before you buy. The perspective you hold- personal or business- makes a difference in how you will work with herbs and what it means for the larger community of plants, people and the planet. Let’s explore this further…
Sustainable Botanicals in Business
As a business owner, or working within a company that uses plants, there are important questions to ask suppliers and research to ensure the sustainability and integrity of botanicals. Here are a few examples:
- Where are the herbs from? Is the origin where the botanical is native?
- What are your vendor’s sourcing standards?
- How are herbs stored? Do practices ensure the integrity of the botanical – temperature, moisture, avoiding co-mingling or potential for foreign matter, for example.
- After wild harvesting, were new seeds planted to ensure the livelihood of the next generation of plants?
How a business answers these questions will guide their sourcing practices, product development, and marketing to align with sustainable best practices.
“Sustainability starts even before a crop is planted. It begins with a philosophy of considering how the environment, farmers, distributors, retailers, and consumers will all be impacted by the lifecycle and use of the plant. It takes a holistic approach for the best therapeutic outcomes and positive impact for our planet and communities,” emphasizes ACHS President Tracey Abell.
Regenerative Farming
In our busy, modern-day, convenience-oriented lives, we don’t often think about where our plants come from. Many of us select vibrant, fresh-looking produce from the grocery store or a
local farmer’s market. However, appearance alone doesn’t guarantee that these plants contain the nutrients and beneficial components we expect or need.
The healthful components plants contain is directly related to the health of the soil in which they’re grown. Farming practices today are meant to produce large quantities of plants in as short a time as possible. One crop is grown over large expanses of land and pesticides are used to produce higher yields. Over time, this decreases the microbial diversity in the soil and exposes people who consume those crops to increasing amounts of pesticides. Pesticides also block the absorption of nutrients from the soil into the plant. It’s a lose-lose scenario for the plants and the people consuming them. Learn more about projected sustainability trends in the ACHS white paper: Integrative Health and Wellness Industry Trends: Preparing for 2025 and Beyond.
Do you know how farmers can create and maintain healthy soil? Learn more about regenerative and sustainable farming efforts directly from industry experts at the upcoming ACHS Sustainability Expo: Sustainable Botanicals, taking place virtually in March 2025.
Sustainable Healing
When people aren’t feeling well, they often don’t think about the origin of the natural remedies they take. They simply want to feel better. For holistic health practitioners, however, it’s critical to ask important questions about product origins, such as, “Which natural product companies are working sustainably?” These considerations can significantly impact how well a person feels after using those products. It’s equally important to educate clients or patients about more sustainable ways to take their remedies and to clearly articulate the benefits of doing so.
As we think about our own health, we can also consider the health of our community. Depending on whether their needs are economic, environmental, or health-related drives decisions about actions taken to support them. When community aid includes sustainable healing efforts, it leads to an overall healthier community. Using available healing remedies that come directly from local ecosystems creates more accessible healing for more people. Identifying those opportunities can engage people in the community to make healthier decisions for themselves and their families.
Sustainability in Community
What is a community? From our human perspective, we may think of it as our family, friends, or neighbors. We may expand it to include the people in our social groups, or work, but it goes much further. Botanically speaking, our community is the plants, trees, and grasses growing around us. These plants live through the same rain, wind, and heat weather conditions we live through. They experience the floods, droughts, freezing, and blazing temperatures we often have shelter from. They live in our neighborhoods and interact with the insects, birds, bees, and wild animals that live around us.
Since plants can’t avoid harsh environments, they produce chemicals to recover from weather extremes and damage caused by humans or animals. Scientists recognize those chemicals as constituents or phytonutrients but holistic health practitioners know them as herbal ointments or teas. They are the natural medicines we use to heal ourselves. They are our original pharmacy and are part of our natural community.
With these ideas in mind, how do we care for our community of plants, people and by extension, our planet? What actions can we take to protect them so they can continue to protect and heal us? It’s a cycle—when we support them, they, in turn, support us. Consider whether you are fully prepared to speak about and integrate sustainability into your life in this way.
Join us for the ACHS Sustainability Expo: Sustainable Botanicals to learn more about the many ways sustainability can be practically implemented and create a healthier future for yourself and your community of family, friends, clients, colleagues, plants and planet. Everyone will thank you for it!
This article is for informational purposes only. The information included is representative of industry trends as provided in the references. Please refer to third-party sites for additional information. ACHS does not guarantee graduate employment or other placement. Note that professional success is achieved by a number of factors beyond education and experience, including soft skills, work ethic, integrity, and other skills that may not be developed through education and training alone.
