Give a gift that matters
Does Uncle Bob really need one more silk tie?
This holiday season, you can choose from a cornucopia of gifts that will surprise and delight family and friends while helping to protect the environment. Most are equally well suited to birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions. Here are a few suggestions:
Bird-friendly coffee
Have you wondered why you don't hear as many birds singing lately? Believe it or not, your coffee could be one of the culprits. Most mass-produced coffee today is grown in Latin America on large, full-sun coffee plantations, a radical departure from the traditional shade-grown method that preserves rainforest habitat for migrating songbirds. Bird-friendly coffee (which in many cases, is also organic) costs slightly more, but its slow-maturing beans produce a fuller, richer taste. For a truly educational gift, consider sending the coffee with a guide to local songbirds. For more information, check out Grounds for Change.
Sustainable chocolate
The same environmental issues that affect coffee also affect chocolate. Chocolate's main ingredient, cocoa, traditionally has been grown in small-scale plots beneath the forest canopy but is now mostly produced on large, chemical-intensive plantations in Africa and Central and South America. Even more troubling, half the world's cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast, where child labor is used. To counter the dark side of chocolate, environmentally friendly producers have created a variety of organic offerings in charming gift packages. For more information, check out the Endangered Species Chocolate Company.
Organic flowers
The environment sometimes pays a heavy price when we "say it with flowers." A $16 billion annual business in the United States, cut flowers are among the most pesticide-dependent of crops. In Ecuador, the second-largest U.S. supplier of cut flowers, 60% of the workers suffer from headaches, nausea or other ailments. But holiday bouquet buyers now have the option of giving organic flowers certified with the Veriflora label, which requires green growing practices and fair labor standards for workers. Ask your flower seller for more information.
Fruit baskets
Organic fruit is now well established in the marketplace, part of a burgeoning natural foods business that is growing 25% a year. A variety of vendors will deliver certified organic fruit baskets in time for the holidays. An alternative is a non-perishable assortment of organic dried fruit and nuts. For more information, check out Cherry Moon Farms.
Renewable energy
Give the gift of green tags! Also known as renewable energy certificates, green tags pay for the slightly higher cost of generating solar, wind, or biomass energy. Customers still get power (and bills) from their local provider, and the cleaner energy is generally produced somewhere else, but its addition into the grid means that an equal amount will not need to be generated from fossil fuels at a conventional power plant. Solar is the most expensive, at 10 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour. Wind power is much cheaper, at 1.5 to 2.5 cents. Least expensive is energy derived from methane gas from landfills at 0.4 to 1.0 cents per kilowatt hour. Since Methane is a high-impact global warming gas when released into the atmosphere, your purchase does double duty for the environment. You can purchase green tags from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.
These green holiday shopping tips are courtesy of Earth Share of Washington organization Environmental Defense and author Jim Motavalli.