At Lotus Center we are committed to helping our clients heal their bodies and their lives; and we are also committed to serving our staff, our community, and our planet by adhering to environmentally responsible business practices. We’ve taken steps in several areas:

The landscape plants on our grounds are primarily native and arid-adapted plants, and we chose many of them not only for their low water requirements but also for their value to birds and other small wildlife. Our landscape design is based on permaculture principles. Rainwater is harvested and directed to basins where it benefits plants and other living things while reducing storm water runoff and downstream flooding. When additional irrigation is required, we use a drip system to minimize water use.

Our exterior lighting is capped above to protect dark skies, and a portion of our exterior lights use photovoltaic solar power. Indoors, we have energy-saving compact fluorescent rather than incandescent bulbs in most of our light fixtures.  We even talked the property owners into splitting the cost of installing new triple-pane low-e windows in most of the building.

Our beverage service area is set up to minimize impacts. We limit energy use by heating tea water in small batches in a super-insulated pot and by turning off our water cooler overnight. Most of the teas we offer are organic.

We built two compost bins (of salvaged pallet lumber) so we can compost yard trimmings as well as used tea bags and napkins and cups.  The disposable cups we use are made of renewable resources and designed to be fully compostable.  (The cold-drink cups are corn-based plastic and the hot-drink cups are recycled paper.)

Our restrooms include such water conservation features as faucet aerators and low-water use toilets. Instead of disposable paper towels, we provide small individual cotton guest towels. For tissue paper products, we choose those with high recycled content and no chlorine bleach. Also, we use natural and nontoxic cleaning supplies.

A portion of our massage table linens at Lotus Center are organic cotton or a cotton-hemp blend. And we provide organic and natural massage lubricants for our therapists – and for you.

Some of our furniture is “recycled”. As for massage equipment, our new tables are from Oakworks, one of the most ecologically responsible manufacturers in the massage product industry. Oakworks uses materials that are free of environmentally harmful PVC, dyes, and chemicals.

For our office needs, we reduce, reuse, and recycle to the extent possible. For example, we buy refurbished cartridges for our printer. Any flyers we reproduce on colored paper are at least 30% recycled content, and our business cards and stationary are printed on recycled paper with the highest post-consumer content we could find.

We use power strips for our various electronics and small appliances, and turn the power strips off at the end of the day to avoid the significant “phantom loads” of electricity that occur in most homes and businesses.

Finally, we are a carbon-neutral business, meaning we make no net contribution to global climate change. We use carbon offsets, purchased through Native Energy, to counter the impacts of greenhouse gases produced as a result of heating, cooling, and other energy use at Lotus Center. (For a good overview of carbon offsets, visit Co-op America.)  We also participate in 100% Replanted, through which we sponsor tree planting at a level that goes far beyond the wood and paper products that we use.

Lotus Center also networks with like-minded groups in several ways:

• We're a charter member of the Southern Arizona Holistic Chamber of Commerce, a new nonprofit organization dedicated to serving area businesses with a holistic purpose or holistic orientation toward business and life.
• We participate in Sustainable Tucson, a coalition that works to facilitate and accelerate Tucson's transition to sustainability through education and action.
• Lotus Center is also a member of Local First Arizona, an organization of locally-owned independent businesses.  Visit their website to find other local businesses and discover how your choice to shop local benefits you and your community.
• Also, we're part of Holistic Local, an online community that works to bring together people interested in living in more holistic, green, and positive ways.
• We make a real effort to support other locally-owned independent businesses and to support companies that are socially and environmentally responsible.
• And we donate regularly to nonprofit environmental organizations and community causes.

Meanwhile, the fact that we lease rather than own our facility puts clear constraints on what is feasible. Our building had been freshly painted and the hardwood floors refinished just before we leased it, so the use of conventional products was a "done deal" in those areas. And as a new business, we are constantly faced with challenging decisions about the most prudent choices for limited funds.  We're not claiming to be perfect, but we're doing what we can.

And -- we would like to do more! Your questions or suggestions are always welcome. If you have comments related to any of the above or to other ways we can be more socially and environmentally responsible, please let us know the next time you come in for a massage.