Green Your Shopping Habits: Gifts

Shopping is an activity so ingrained into our society that we often do it thoughtlessly, automatically, or hurriedly. By paying more attention to how you shop and what you buy, however, you can make a difference for the planet. This week we’re sharing tips about how to green your shopping habits.

Tip #2: Green Your Gift-Buying Habits

It’s easy to be profligate when shopping for gifts. After all, we want to show the person for whom we’re purchasing how much we care about them and that we wouldn’t hold back when doing something nice for them. But in the long run, prodigal buying for those we love will hurt not only them, but us too, along with all of Earth’s other living things.

So how to green your gift-giving? Well, say Mother’s Day is coming up. Consider shopping online (thus saving the fuel emissions of driving to the mall) for a symbolic gift that will also help Mother Earth, like the Sierra Club’s “Sponsor a Wild Place Gift,” which, for $25, gets mom a certificate that lets her know that a wild place is more protected because of her, plus a cuddly version of an endangered species. Another green benefit? You can skimp on the wrapping.

Tell us: How do you green your gift-buying habits?