The Synergy Company is founded on the premise that good faith,
integrity and environmental responsibility are eminently compatible
with good business.

- Mitchell May, Founder & CEO, The Synergy Company

Never before have the opportunities for conscious, sustainable living been so numerous, yet never before has the need for sustainable practices been so urgent and great.

From our founding, the commitment to search for and implement sustainable ways of doing business has been an integral way of thinking here at Synergy. Looking out our windows at the dramatic redrock mesas and snow-capped mountains that make Moab such a special place to live and work is a constant reminder that we need to continually find new ways to preserve and protect our fragile ecosystems.

It is our belief that the collective effect of individual choice is extraordinarily powerful. It is also our belief that businesses should be responsible for developing solutions, not exacerbating problems. Accordingly, we strive to promote renewable and sustainable ways of doing business and want to share with you how we’ve tackled this challenge from our first day in business, and how we've continued to look for new solutions every day since.

It takes a considerable amount of energy to manufacture, store and distribute our products. Fortunately, in almost all communities across America today, consumers and businesses alike now have a choice between renewable sources of energy from solar energy and wind power, and nonrenewable sources such as fossil fuels.

Here in Moab, The Synergy Company helped to organize a citywide initiative to promote participation in the “Blue Sky Wind Power” program. Not only was Synergy the first company in Utah to convert 100% of our electricity usage to this renewable, nonpolluting source, but we actively encouraged other businesses and individuals (beginning with our own employees!) to make a similar choice. The effort was truly worth it, as we succeeded beyond everyone’s expectation in helping to convert 13% of Moab’s energy users to renewable sources. This accomplishment was considered so inspirational and significant that Moab was formally designated by the EPA as the first Green Power Community in America (2004).

This decision to use wind power did mean that we would pay a premium for our electricity, but we feel this relatively modest differential is well worth the added expense. Over the years, our usage of wind power alone has led to the reduction of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide emissions. And just as importantly, it has helped to inspire others in our community to opt for wind power as well.

This commitment on our part has a very tangible benefit for you — every Synergy product that you receive from us is manufactured with a zero carbon footprint using 100% nonpolluting wind energy!

Opting to use wind power for our Moab facilities has brought lots of direct benefits, but it only addresses a portion of the overall carbon footprint associated with our full scope of business activities. Like every other business, we have many other activities that can add to global warming and resource depletion. These include our inbound and outbound freight shipments; even the activities of our organic farms and farmers, processors and suppliers; the commuting and occasional air travel of our employees; and, of course, all of the paper and packaging materials we use.

To 100% offset the impact of all these activities, The Synergy Company, in cooperation with Plant-It 2020 (started by the late singer John Denver), created SynerTrees ™, many years ago - a reforestation program to annually plant indigenous trees in the United States at a rate that exceeds our own consumption. Each year, we conduct an audit of our consumption of wood pulp-related products and our output of carbon dioxide emissions. We then add 25% to that number to determine the total number of trees we will plant annually with Plant-It 2020. Going one step further, we support a special jobs program where our seedlings are planted by inner-city youths to give them the opportunity to connect more directly with their natural environment and engage them at an early age in sustainability-related activities.

Perhaps one of our most significant contributions to improving the environment (and your health!) has been our decision to grow, source and promote the development of organic ingredients for our products. Our decision to “go organic” has served as the cornerstone of our commitment to sustainable business practices since our very first days as a company.

More and more these days, many people just like you around the world are choosing organic products over conventional ones. Their motivations for going organic have to do with the profound benefits for one’s personal health as well as the health of family and loved ones. But equally important in the choice to "go organic", is our growing awareness of how utterly crucial it is for the health and safety of the environment. We have all become increasingly aware of the severe environmental damage caused by today’s industrial, chemical-laden farming methods. With more and more organic choices available today, what is truly wonderful is that we now have a very real and powerful means to effect positive environmental change by simply choosing organic for our food and dietary supplements.

Fortunately, by supporting organic farming practices, we not only reduce the depletion of resources, but we revive and restore the nutrient-rich soils upon which our country is singularly dependent. And while The Synergy Company’s commitment to organics may have started out small, engaging a handful of farmers with a few acres of organic farmland, today we have over 3,000 acres of organic cropland dedicated to the cultivation of our ingredients.

We want to support you and the hundreds of thousands of other people all over the world who collectively share hopes and goals for more sustainable and healthy ways of living. Your choice to “go organic” for your foods and dietary supplements may very well be the single most influential thing that you can do to help restore environmental health, renew communities and protect your own and your family’s health.

Another significant initiative we took in becoming a more sustainable company was our decision to build our own customized “green” facilities here in Moab. Even before we broke ground, we partnered with the US Park Service to transplant the site’s native plants for use in park restoration projects. The decision to build our own facilities allowed us to incorporate low-impact and sustainable technologies into all aspects of our operations. From the selection of xeriscape (water conserving) landscaping, to low-flow toilets, to energy-efficient equipment, to automatic light sensors, we’ve taken every measure to make our operations more eco-friendly.

Today, we occupy two buildings in Moab, Utah. Our main building houses our production, warehouse and quality departments. And our newest addition is an eco-friendly building that’s home to our administration and customer service departments. Our new addition is constructed from Rastra - a composite of recycled polystyrene, cement and concrete – and was designed with passive solar orientation, radiant in-floor heating, low-energy cooling and, equally important for our employees, awesome views from their offices.

Every day at The Synergy Company for every task we perform, we ask ourselves if a more eco-friendly way to perform that task exists. Not surprisingly, the answer is very often "Yes!"

Along with the larger steps already noted, here are a few of the smaller, yet still significant, steps we’ve taken to lessen our footprint:

• We use only 100% biodegradable and organic-compliant cleaning agents
• We use only recycled paper, paper products and boxes
• We use only vegetable-based inks and water-based coatings for our printed materials
• We use only glass bottles, which are easily recyclable, for our products
• We have an extensive in-house recycling program for all our paper and plastic products
• We use only organic cotton on our bottling line
• We compost any unused raw material in our gardens
• We use only biodegradable cornstarch “peanuts” to protect our bottles from breakage in shipment
• We grow and use over 150 certified organic ingredients
• We never use ingredients that have been genetically modified or are irradiated
• We never use solvents such as hexane or methanol during extraction or concentration of our ingredients
• We never use magnesium stearate or any chemical processing aids in any of our products

We’re happy and proud to report that our leadership role as a business model for sustainability has not gone unnoticed. The State of Utah has twice given The Synergy Company the annual award for “Excellence in Manufacturing for Environmental Consciousness”. And in 2007, the prestigious Nutrition Business Journal honored us with two awards: the Organic Excellence Award and the Environment and Sustainability Award, citing that, “in truth, no other company comes close to what The Synergy Company has done for 15 years on these fronts and continues to do so daily."

As a recognized leader with many years of experience in developing environmentally responsible business practices, we’ve also learned that eco-oriented sustainability is not enough.

We believe that to become a sustainable business in the fullest sense of the word requires the development of a particular business culture - one that values and fosters long-term relationships. We’ve learned that what makes a business truly sustainable are the many ties that bind. The loyalty and good faith that we extend to our partners, farmers and suppliers - and the loyalty and trust our customers extend to us, work in concert to create a business that’s sustainable. And that’s a really key point, because the healthier and more sustainable our business is, the more capable we are of supporting, and creating an innovative array of eco-friendly business practices.

For this reason, we view sustainability as a twofold discipline that combines a relationship-oriented business culture with a commitment to finding the most eco-friendly way of conducting our business. This complementary pairing creates a particular synergy that we call the synergy of sustainability.