{"id":3935,"date":"2008-12-16T20:56:11","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T02:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3935"},"modified":"2008-12-16T20:56:11","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T02:56:11","slug":"five-green-holiday-gifts-that-keep-on-giving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/five-green-holiday-gifts-that-keep-on-giving\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Green Holiday Gifts that Keep on Giving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2008\/12\/naturegifts1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3937\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2008\/12\/naturegifts1.jpg\" alt=\"Human hands return mice to nature\" width=\"273\" height=\"296\" \/><\/a><em>This post was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.intent.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/15\/five-green-holiday-gifts-keep-giving\">originally published at Intent.com<\/a> on Monday, December 15, 2008.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>The winter holidays are almost upon us, and whether you&#8217;re celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or the holiday(s) of another tradition, you may still be stumped for gifts to give this year&#8230; especially gifts that fit your own (and the recipients&#8217;) values.<\/h3>\n<p>For the past few years, I&#8217;ve moved away from buying &#8220;stuff&#8221; as much as possible, and focused on giving the gift of giving (say that three times fast!). That is, I look for gifts that contribute to larger causes. After writing about <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2008\/11\/26\/the-gift-card-that-literally-keeps-on-giving-tisbest\/\">&#8216;TisBest gift cards<\/a> a couple of weeks ago, I started brainstorming on other good &#8220;gifts that keep on giving&#8221; for the &#8220;treehugger&#8221; on your list.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Adopt an Animal:<\/strong> This has become my mainstay for my neice and nephews.\u00a0 We don&#8217;t get them a pet; rather, we make a donation to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.longmeadowrescueranch.org\/sponsor.php\">Missouri Humane Society&#8217;s Longmeadow Rescue Ranch &#8220;Barn Buddy&#8221; program<\/a>. You can check with your local <a href=\"https:\/\/secure.hsus.org\/01\/yearend08video_homepage\">Humane Society<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspca.org\/site\/PageServer?pagename=homepage\">ASPCA<\/a> chapter for similar programs. If wildlife is more your thing, Defenders of Wildlife has <a href=\"https:\/\/secure.defenders.org\/site\/SPageServer?pagename=wagc_penguin&amp;autologin=true&amp;s_src=WKY09WDADOPTON&amp;s_subsrc=WKY09WDADOPTON_09ADOPT9c&amp;JServSessionIdr006=qwso39qg13.app25a\">&#8220;adoption&#8221; gifts<\/a> featuring wolves, penuins, polar bears, and other animals.<\/li>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<li><strong>Plant a Tree:<\/strong> You can do this on your own, or make a contribution: both the <a href=\"https:\/\/secure.nrdconline.org\/08\/costarica_inhonor\/nWpLZOU5qXEVX?\">Natural Resources Defense Council <\/a>and the <a href=\"http:\/\/support.nature.org\/site\/PageServer?pagename=brazil_gift_aaa&amp;autologin=true\">Nature Conservancy<\/a> have donation programs that involve tree-planting. Or, for the bibilophiles on your list, for-profit company <a href=\"http:\/\/ecolibris.net\/\">Eco-Libris<\/a> sells &#8220;book offsets&#8221;: they&#8217;ll plant a tree for each book you choose to &#8220;offset.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Offset <\/strong>E<strong>missions:<\/strong> Give the gift of carbon neutrality by purchasing carbon offsets. Some of the most well-known and respected vendors of offsets are <a href=\"http:\/\/terrapass.com\">Terrapass<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nativeenergy.com\/\">Native Energy<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carbonfund.org\">Carbonfund.org<\/a>. Regardless of the company from which you purchase offsets, make sure that they&#8217;re certified by a third party, such a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.green-e.org\/getcert_ghg_products.shtml\">Green-e<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Give Green Energy:<\/strong> Sure, you could buy a loved one a solar system or wind turbine, but that&#8217;s probably well beyond most of our budgets. Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs&#8230; also known as &#8220;green tags&#8221;) confer the environmental benefits of green energy without having to invest in the equipment. Green-e also certifies REC dealers, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.renewablechoice.com\/\">Renewable Choice Energy<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.b-e-f.org\/\">Bonneville Environmental Foundation<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.meipl.org\/\">Maine Interfaith Power and Light<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Give a Membership:<\/strong> Finally, for family and friends that might like the gift of involvement, why not buy them a gift membership in an environmental organization such as The <a href=\"http:\/\/sierraclub.org\/\">Sierra Club<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coopamerica.org\/\">Co-op America<\/a> (Green America as of 1\/9\/09), or the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.audubon.org\/\">National Audubon Society<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We can (and should) forgo holiday-related consumerism as much as possible, but that doesn&#8217;t mean we should abandon the spirit of giving associated with our various traditions. If you have other ideas for green gifts that keep on giving, I&#8217;d love to hear about them.<\/p>\n<p><em>Disclosure: I do have relationships with many of the organizations and companies listed above, but offer them only as examples&#8230; I&#8217;m receiving nothing for listing them in this post.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Image credit:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/angela7\/1258691645\/\">angela7dreams at Flickr<\/a> under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/deed.en\">Creative Commons license<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post was originally published at Intent.com on Monday, December 15, 2008. The winter holidays are almost upon us, and whether you&#8217;re celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or the holiday(s) of&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":3937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[728,1278,184,111,2109,2110,2203,2204,2205],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Five Green Holiday Gifts that Keep on Giving &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/five-green-holiday-gifts-that-keep-on-giving\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five Green Holiday Gifts that Keep on Giving &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post was originally published at Intent.com on Monday, December 15, 2008. 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