Sustainable Christmas Presents
What should you get your environmentally conscious family member this Christmas? We round up some of our favourite eco-friendly presents.
How to Save Our Planet by Mark Maslin
Described as a ‘handbook of how we together can save our precious planet’, the latest book by Two Sides Seminar speaker Mark Maslin has gained praise from everyone from Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention, to Virgin Radio DJ Chris Evans. Its combination of cold hard facts and real-world suggestions delivers a powerful call to action for everyone – politicians, academics, business leaders and consumers – to get a grip of the environmental crisis and pull the planet back from the precipice. As Mark says: “It’s time to face the facts and save our planet from, and for, ourselves.”
£7.99 from all good book shops.
Cardboard Playhouse
A common Christmas Day sight is seeing your kids get more enjoyment out of the packaging than their actual presents, so one company has created a range of cardboard playhouses that will keep them entertained for days. Designed and manufactured in the UK from recycled FCS-certified corrugated cardboard, there are igloos, rockets, sheds, puppet theatres and a range of castles to choose from. And since the playhouses are made of plain cardboard, your kids can decorate them any way they want.
From £14.99 kidecocrafts.co.uk
Buy An Acre
For £100, you can buy someone an acre of threatened habitat in Argentina, Belize or Brazil through World Land Trust, which will be protected forever. World Land Trust is an environmental charity that protects the world’s most biologically significant habitats by funding the creation of reserves to provide permanent protection for habitats and wildlife. By protecting land threatened by agriculture and poachers, the charity not only preserves the habitats of the animals that live there, but prevents deforestation. All donations of £25 and above will receive a personalised certificate you can give on Christmas Day.
For more information and to make a donation, go to worldlandtrust.org
The Eco-Jigsaw
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a jigsaw puzzle, and since most are made of cardboard they have in-built sustainability. Puzzle maker Cloudberries have gone one step further, with all puzzles made using recycled paper and board, and printed with vegetable-based inks. Not only that, in partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects, the company has pledged to plant a tree for every puzzle that’s sold. Try the 1000-piece ‘Gradient’ or ‘Celestial’ puzzles for a true challenge.
From £16.99 www.cloudberries.co.uk
85kg Of Carbon Dioxide
Your relative may not be too thrilled if you handed over a container full of invisible gas, but their mood may improve when you announce you have removed that amount of carbon from the atmosphere for them. For €85, a Swiss startup will remove and store 85kg of CO2 using their direct-air carbon capture facility – the largest in the world. At the plant in Iceland, machines take in air and filter out the CO2, before storing it permanently underground. It may not completely offset their carbon emissions this Christmas, but it’s a good start to 2022.
From £18 climeworks.com
The Paper Fact File
Paper is one of the most sustainable and recycled materials in the world!
Visit the Paper Fact File to discover the facts about paper’s sustainable attributes. Some might surprise you!