Think Local First.
Think your neighborhood. Think your friend's business. Think local arts and crafts.Think the businesses that comprise and strengthen jobs in your community. Local First businesses promote the triple bottom line of economic prosperity, social equity and environmental kinship.
Think Fair.
Fair Trade products celebrate sustainable economies that value the well-being of people and the environment. Research Fair Trade businesses at the Fair Trade Federation. Bake the best brownies ever with Fair Trade Chocolate.
Donate or Offset.
Buy renewable energy credits. Fund reforestation projects. Support carbon offsets all at BeGreen.com. Give a donation to the Environmental Defense Fund, or another organization working toward a better planet.
Make your own.
Bead it. Bag it. Grow it. Paint it. Sew it. Frame it. Cook it. Concoct special sea salt bath/herb combos with Free Trade Organics from Frontier National Products Coop.
Look for Artisan gifts.
Buy goods made from recycled materials at GrowandMake.com. Enable responsible schlepping by gifting from Reusablebags.com. See GoGreen's curated selection on Etsy.com.
GIve of yourself
Custom design an experience for someone you love. Commit to a service for a friend. Offer a helping hand to a neighbor.
Give healthier, less toxic beauty products!
Whether you want to be shocked or not, if you're going to buy lotions, potions, perfumes or cosmetics for anyone on your list, you must check the product in the fabulous, reliable and detailed Skin Deep Database. Skin Deep cross references all ingredients by product to known toxins and scores items from 0 (pure) to 10 (pure poison). There's no apparent correlation between cost and purity- and some big global brands have items that are clean, and others that are patently dangerous. This is a fairly unregulated area- so it's up to you to make better decisions. Be especially careful when gifting to growing girls and young women, who are susceptible to hormonal damage!
Some brands we like:
Osea Malibu (a line we like made by the very selective founder, Jenefer Palmer- a true purist)
Aveda (the grandaddy of environmentally conscious beauty- from pure ingredients to packaging)
Pangea Organics (Bonus: packaging is plantable paper- you can grow a spruce by watering this year's holiday box!)
Edelbio (although the carbon footprint bothers us, the products meet the stringent Swiss Organic standards)
Give healthier clothing and textiles:
Textile certifications are much more difficult to assess- there's a lot of grey area from a consumer information perspective- so let's look at the stages of how clothing items are produced, and where the opportunities for making greener choices are.
Fabrics: Look for Organic Trade Association or EcoTex 100 certification. Be aware: If something says "organic cotton" it only means that it was grown without chemicals- nothing about processing, etc.
Processing, dying and treating of fabrics: Other than BlueSign, a certification that goes all the way through low impact dying and sizing, it's very hard to know what a fabric's been treated with- and ultimately, it's these chemicals that are up against your skin and running off into ground water.
Where it's made: Domestic and European manufactures have higher labor standards and cleaner power. The closer something is made to your home, the lower the carbon footprint in shipping. Make your choices consciously.
Some brands we like:
Ecoganik- a California Company making luscious mainstream wearable clothes- we featured them on NBC this month.
Search EFW for a complete directory of Green Clothing Makers
Find stuff at our friend Lynn's sop- she's done a lot of very picky selecting: Ecologique
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