It may only be the start of Autumn, but retailers are already eyeing up the prospect of Christmas and preparing to stock the shops with the first gifts for the festive season.
Last year, the Rainforest Foundation UK held an online auction event to raise funds and awareness of rainforest deforestation. It was a huge success and will be repeated again this year, with a fantastic array of gift items for those wishing to score a one-off celebrity endorsed gift, whilst supporting a very worthwhile charity.
As with last year, there’ll be plenty of gifts that no money could buy, such as lunch at Sting’s country manor, Kylie Minogue signed items, Jenny Packham, Aspinal of London and Vivienne Westwood goodies and VIP hampers, gig tickets, spa dates, Michelin star restaurant experiences, championship golf course rounds and signed football goodies amongst others!
The auction will raise valuable funds and help raise awareness of the charity’s work. It’s also a great way of showing how retailers can combine the festive retail trend with charitable support work – particularly as Christmas has always been a time of year traditionally associated with giving. It’s a great opportunity to buy rainforest protection themed gifts and trinkets for your loved ones and help them learn about the rainforest and its need for protection.
Other good gifts include charitable or sponsorship gifts – for example a donation towards a charity’s work, a replanted tree, or a gift of a well for a displaced Amazonian village. These are examples of gifts that support, grow and preserve the planet, rather than creating more consumer items that will eventually add to the growing piles of landfill. They can also be great for engaging and interesting people in the education and preservation work of the Rainforest Foundation and other charities and have a far longer lasting effect than the average Christmas gift, which might otherwise be discarded by New Year!
We’re somewhat astounded that more individuals aren’t involved with the living green movement, seeing how often we hear the words recycle, reduce and reuse. We’re running out of time; we all need to get started with eco-friendly living beginning right now. It doesn’t take all that much to start making a significant contribution, only a few minor alterations.
To start, how about getting more of your food from local suppliers – you’ll unquestionably be healthier, if you do. Certainly, you have been to a local farmer’s market, and seen all of the things for sale. You’ll see other local businesses trying to compete with the big boys with meats, bread and other baked goods, and farm-fresh crops. Usually the food is fresher, and healthier also, and not just that, but you are supporting the local economy. Also, you can talk to the actual producers of the goods and ask questions about things like pesticides and preservatives. The food didn’t have to be trucked from some faraway place, which means less fuel was wasted, and fewer emissions were put into the air.
Maybe you could think about using recyclable containers to carry your lunch to work instead of going out to lunch daily. Reusable containers can make a great difference, alleviating some of the sizable waste created by today’s methods of packaging food. It’s easier to select the exact size or amount you need as well. It is a superb idea to bring along a couple of reusable silverware also. Mostly, buying food in bulk will help us battle the enormous amount of waste involved in packaging food for only a single serving. If you’d like to begin sending less garbage to your local landfills, consider composting your old fruits and vegetables. What if you don’t grow a garden? Well, there’s always someone not too far away, probably a neighbour, who’ll be happy to take all the compost you can give them.
There are some tips for saving energy when you are preparing food. When you are boiling water, put a lid on the pot, as it boils much more quickly when it is covered. Just remember to lessen the heat as soon as it begins boiling. Pre-heating the oven also wastes energy, as this is not needed for most foods. Something else that will not waste energy is to turn off the oven for the last 15 minutes, when cooking such things as roasts, since the heat that is left will finish the cooking.
Does all this sound like a big waste of time to you? Well, nothing could be more wrong. There’s actually no excuse to not do most of them on a daily basis. You cannot overestimate how much energy we’d save just by doing these few simple things.
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