Sustainable Valentines
Love your partner and love the planet
I get it now, as a happily committed man. It’s not cheesy. It’s not a pointless holiday. This St Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to mark my love for this person, to celebrate it in as deeply personal a way as I can. It doesn’t matter if I normally do romantic gestures once a day or once a month or never. This day is a celebration.
My resistance to the commercial side of the holiday stems from a longing for gifts that meant something, that have permanence, and that are responsible and sustainable. I railed against the impersonal, the quick, the done-without-thought.
In this guide, I provide tips for sustainable Valentines, grouped into three categories: cards, gifts and gestures. The key thing to remember is that we know our partners best, so we are the best people to judge how sustainable to make it. We shouldn’t aim for maximum “greenness” at the expense of putting ourselves in the doghouse.
Cards
(1) Make the card ourselves. It doesn’t even matter if we think we’re not creative. The objective is to capture and express the sentiment — “I love you” — with our own hands. It doesn’t matter how it looks, as long as it communicates that central point effectively.
- Suggested search term: “how to hand-make a greeting…
