Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! If you’re looking to celebrate with your lovely other half this year but want to dodge the foil balloons and plastic hearts, look no further! We’ve collected our favourite ideas from our friends and family, and we’d love to share them with you guys.
Back to Basics
1. Gift fair-trade organic chocolate. Fairtrade helps make cocoa farming more sustainable by guaranteeing minimum prices and providing a premium to invest in local communities, so farmers can provide a better future for themselves and their families.
2. Can’t give up the flowers? Plant your own rose bush together and enjoy roses all year round.
3. Make your own perfumes based with essential oils. Ah… the sweet smell of petrochemicals! Traditional perfumes are full of toxins – bad for you and bad for the environment. This year try making your own perfumes instead. You’ll be able to tailor the scent to the things they love and you know they’ll appreciate the time you spent too.
4. Send more sustainable cards. Lots of Valentine’s Day cards are made on virgin paper, requiring more energy than recycling mills and releasing more greenhouse gases too. Instead, give a card that uses recycled paper, make your own out of scrap paper, send cards made with wildflower seeds or even send an e-card!
For the Foodie
5. Eat at farm-to-table restaurants. Not only is this hugely beneficial to the environment, food that travels minimal distance tastes fresher and more flavoursome!
6. Cook your meal at home. Take total control of your meal and substitute with organic produce, naturally raised meat (or go plant-based if you can!) and local ingredients.
7. Bake a cake. Less plastic packaging and much more thoughtful!
8. Choose organic wine. Be sure that your money is no longer going towards toxic pesticides, child slavery or farmers’ exploitation. You can even get wines grown in the UK or nearby in Europe, meaning your wine won’t have to travel as far to get to you.
For the Plant Lovers
9. Gift a potted plant instead of a bunch of flowers. Not only do plants increase the feel-good-factor by having some greenery about, lots of them improve your air quality too.
10. Plant a tree together and enjoy fruits from the same tree in 30 years’ time (just think how much life might have changed!).
11. Plant your own indoor herb garden. Maybe you’ll be cooking with those some herbs at their next birthday, Christmas or Valentine’s too, so cute!
12. Sew wildflower seeds together, fun for you, great for bees.
13. Plant a small veg patch that you’ll work on together rather than just for one day!
For the Activist
14. Gift an acre of rainforest with World Land Trust in your beloved’s name. Much more romantic than carving your names!
15. Adopt an animal with WWF. You get a handmade cuddly toy of your chosen animal, a traditional valentine’s gift. You can also choose to just get the pick and pass on the toy.
16. Attend a youth climate strike! Find your nearest strike here.
For your Memories Together
17. Take a walk together. It can be so romantic to take a picnic in a cute location, stroll to the libraries to pick up movies to watch together or even visit a local park or conservation centre.
18. Learn something new. Sign up to attend a talk tour or even learn a new skill and take a course together.
19. Pamper up together. We’ve got a gorgeous selection of sustainable bath time pamper gifts, check them out here.
20. Get tickets to a comedy club, afternoon tea or even spa day!
21. Create a romantic photo album. Look back on your best memories together and look forward to filling with plenty more happy memories in the future!
22. A jar of good thoughts. Write your loved one’s messages on bits of paper, put them in a jar (recycling!) and decorate it too. When your other half needs a pick me up over the next year, they can take one out and open it (aww!).
23. Create IOUs for anything from a lie-in, breakfast in bed, free pass from chose they hate, choose the movie on movie night.
24. 10 reasons why I love you. Find a recycled notebook and write down all the reasons you love them and special memories on each page.
25. Date nights! Make Valentine’s last the whole year by drawing a list of your top 12 date night ideas and add individually into a jar and pick one at random every month..
The Finishing Touches
26. Recycled wrapping paper. If you’re opting to give a physical gift this year, make sure to choose recycled wrapping paper
27. Set the mood with soy candles. Conventional candles are made with paraffin wax, a petroleum by-product whereas soy candles are a natural option. Check out EcoVibe's Trio of Candles here.
Got any other ideas? We’d love to hear them! Share them with our community in the comments below.