Corporate responsibility
Galen’s Way is a small herbal business with a desire to live right in the world. Since the first transaction, Galen’s Way has been devout to its’ values. While profit must be part of a thriving business, it has never been considered the most important aspect of success. Quality and purposeful practices have always been the Galen’s Way.
Mission statement
Our mission is to provide the highest quality herbal extracts to the practitioner and clinic market while embodying practices of a community-oriented business.
Commitment
Galen’s Way is dedicated to acting responsibly as a company, improving our sustainability practices and analyzing our performance in these areas. We commit to being open, honest and fair with our clientele and strive to reflect our principles in our marketing efforts. It is our goal to take responsibility for the continued quality and purity of our products, offer our products at fair and reasonable prices, respect our employees and our customers and be transparent about our practices. Our facility is registered with FDA, California Department of Public Health, and CCOF as an organic processor. We are certified as a California Green Business as a means to upholding our sustainability commitments.
In 2021, Galen’s Way became a California Benefit Corporation which is a legal corporation status that allows for the consideration of a triple bottom line of profit, people, and planet. A benefit corporation is formed with the purpose of creating a “general public benefit” and is required to measure their overall social and environmental performance against a third-party standard.
We chose to work with B labs and their B Impact Assessment tool as a third-party accreditor. This impact assessment takes in to consideration the business’s impact on all stakeholders — workers, communities, customers, and the environment. It was a 3-year journey to meet the high standards in all five impact areas in the assessment.
In April of 2023, we became a Certified B Corporation. We signed the ‘Declaration of Interdependence’ as a part of the movement to positively affect change in our global economic system. Galen’s Way strives for continuous improvement in all aspects of sustainability and corporate responsibility and is excited to have reached our goal of becoming B Corp certified!
B Corp Certified
A detailed report of our impact assessment can be found here.
To learn more about the metrics of our sustainability efforts, view Galen’s Way Annual Sustainability Report.
Environment
Every aspect of operation is considered in relation to its’ impact on the greater ecology of our planet. Here are some of our areas of success:
Waste
Every material that might be considered waste in our process we want to imagine a new use for.
Compost
All of our marc, or spent herb material after pressing, is composted at a local farm.
Green Waste
All of our paper towels are collected and disposed of in the green waste bin that is collected and processed at a local compost facility.
Recycling
The largest waste stream at Galen’s Way is our recycling. We utilize Terracycle to recycle some of our more challenging waste items like plastic caps, label backing, and a host of other materials that would otherwise go to the landfill.
Landfill
The smallest waste stream we have is our garbage. On average our trash bag of waste weighs no more than 5-10 pound weekly.
Bio-Hazardous Waste
Waste from our microbiology lab is considered bio-hazardous. We hire a third party to remove contaminated waste and have implemented reusable glassware for every operation possible within the QC department.
Energy
We are fortunate to have access to 100% clean and renewable energy at our facility. We are enrolled in the Evergreen program through Sonoma Clean Power where all of our electricity is generated locally and is renewable with solar and geothermal operations.
Sourcing
We support ethical wild crafting practices for those plants that are best harvested directly from nature. When environmental or habitat concerns arise from wild crafting, it is our duty to protect the wild stands of these plants and will not utilize plants considered under threat. We are a proud member of the United Plant Savers and support their Species At-Risk list.
Shipping
All of our out-going UPS packages are shipped with UPS’s Carbon Neutral Shipping program. We reuse packing material as much as possible and use compostable peanuts in our boxes.
Social
We want to interact with our community in ways that touch the daily lives of people, to bring a level of care and attention to helping those in need. From donations to volunteering, giving back is built into our business practices.
Partnership
We are honored to be a significant supply partner to a local organization, The Botanical Bus, a non-profit aimed to provide integrative health services to the Latinx and Indigenous communities in Sonoma and Napa Counties. We donate both our extracts and topicals to their operations on a regular basis.
Donations
We have formalized our commitment to sharing our profits by becoming members of 1% for the Planet. We are on our second year of working with 1% for the Planet and enjoy helping other organizations get involved. Employees of Galen’s Way have the opportunity to annually chose a non-profit to receive donations as well.
Volunteering
Our employees volunteer quarterly with Farm to Pantry, a local organization who is dedicated to rescuing and sharing locally-grown food with those who have been systematically marginalized. We have helped to harvest over 1000 lbs. of apples, 1100 lbs. of lemons and 400 lbs. of plums so far this year!
Who we support
We donate to many other local organizations including:
AHP is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting the responsible use of herbal products and herbal medicines.
The California Native Plant Society is dedicated to conserving California native plants and their natural habitats, while increasing the understanding, enjoyment, and horticultural use of native plants.
Earth Island Institute is a nonprofit environmental organization and fiscal sponsor to more than seventy-five projects working in the areas of conservation, energy and climate, women’s environmental leadership, international and Indigenous communities, sustainability and community resilience, and more.
Medicine For All Seeking Health and Healing (M.A.S.H.H.) is a grassroots organization dedicated to returning medicine to the hands of the people. MASHH provides herbal first aid and wellness clinics at events throughout the West Coast. Galen's Way gladly donates extracts and topicals to MASHH's apothecary stock.
The Redwood Empire Food Bank has been feeding our neighbors in need and leading the community to end hunger. As the largest hunger-relief organization in our area, we value donating to them on a regular basis to help distribute food to those in need.
United Plant Savers’ mission is to protect native medicinal plants, fungi, and their habitats while ensuring renewable populations for use by generations to come.
World Central Kitchen is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises. They build resilient food systems with locally led solutions.
