Wend Magazine: Paperless People-Powered Adventure
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 05. 5.08
Our apologies to Ian Marshall of Wend magazine. Aeons ago Ian wrote to us telling us about the sustainable attributes of his mag. Unfortunately his correspondence went missing in the torrent of email we get. Better late than never.
Wend provides “bold tales to fuel the passion of adventure, born from the love of climbing, cycling, surfing, and kayaking.” It is written for “people with a lust for adventure and a sense of duty to preserve the far out places that give us meaning, hope and identity. Their current issue is available online, as will be future issues, at roughly half the price of the paper editions. And while this is great for the forests it might save from being munched for print pulp, Ian also points out that Wend have never done a specifically "green" issue, because “we have our greenery gear section in every issue, and we promote and discuss green ideas."
He goes on to say: “We are 100% committed to a sustainable lifestyle and bettering our world. We have never inserted blow-in subscription cards, you may have read that Outside just stopped doing that. We don't print thousands of extra copies to toss out at events, most of which get thrown away, to hype our circulation numbers. We only run stories of people powered adventure. We run at least one environment related story in every issue, but also many of our stories include content about the environment, culture and politics of a destination.”
And he tells its straight, for the editorial of the Winter 2008 issue not only encourages readers to go climb a mountain, but it specifically challenges them to: “Be that person who goes grocery shopping on a bike. Get a reusable grocery bag. Learn about the environmental cost of plastic. Learn about the North Pacific Gyre.”
The 'Greenery' section of their first online foray covers recycled polyester outdoor gear and environmentally benign surf and ski waxes. Elsewhere in the mag, you can read feature articles about the rewards of volunteerism while on adventure vacations (Indonesia), finding geothermal power amongst glaciers (Iceland), and cleaning up toxic foreshore spills (San Francisco).
And their blog is also crammed with green stories, some that I’m not even sure we’ve covered on TreeHugger. Like calculating your Water Footprint, Dell’s new eco-computer which has bamboo casing, recycled content innards and uses 40% less power and the one million bicycles rally, planned by August 9, 2009, the ‘cycling equivalent to Woodstock.’
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