Doing our individual part to take care of the planet and mitigate climate change is more important now than ever. One of the most overlooked steps to sustainability is the mindset shift. Too often we think adopting a lifestyle aligned with a sustainability-focused intent is conflated with the idea of giving up a lifestyle we love. Actually, investing in products from businesses that share your environmental ideals affords you the opposite situation: You’ll be able to buy what you want and not feel stifled in the name of sustainability, use your dollars to further the efforts of sustainability-focused companies, and minimize harm to the Earth in the process.

This earth day we want to take a deeper look at the lens shift that sustainability requires. As humans, we all strive for joy in what we seek and do. We determine the value of what we spend money on by the efforts it took to make that money. We justify our needs based on our means, which in our society leads us to determine our worth by the material objects we possess. If we make more money we have to drive nicer cars, buy new clothes every season, buy larger homes... etc. We are not taught by our current economic system that "success" and "sustainability" look anything alike but rather are two separate coins. What if we started to ask ourselves, "How is my success contributing to or hurting the health of the environment?" "What if I measured my success not on the quantity of physical accolades I possess but on the contribution I am putting forth to taking better care of myself and the planet?" When it comes down to it, most of us financially will have to make sacrifices to become more sustainable. With our food, clothes, and especially the places we buy them from. But in turn, we end up saving money and the environment in the long run. Are you ready to make that shift?

At Deep Roots, every department manager has gone through the rigorous process of ensuring that their products meet our values and ethics that are promised to you as a consumer. Organic, Fair Trade, B-Corp, and Local are not just buzzwords we use to increase sales, but determine what makes it to our shelves to be available for you to purchase. We believe in this so much that we offer 2x the points to our owners when they buy products with these labels. This is known as our Taproots Program. And yes, sometimes that means paying more than you would at other grocery stores or Amazon for products so that we can ensure that the farmers we buy from are making a fair wage or the supplements you are buying are truly third-party verified and have published studies backing their efficacy. Because we know the extra money spent at Deep Roots goes back into the community and feeds a sustainable environment so fully, we have been doing it for 45 years and look forward to continuing to do so for many years to come!