The holidays are a wonderful time of year, but they have the potential to also create a lot of waste. That doesn’t have to be the case though! Following are some sustainable holiday ideas, many of which came from KnowBe4’s environmental group, EarthBe4.
Instead of buying glittery or foil wrapping paper, save your money and get creative. For wrapping paper this year, you could decorate paper bags or the packing paper that comes in packages. You can also reuse gift bags (or shopping bags), which can be used again and again. If you really want to buy your wrapping paper, then look for recycled and recyclable options.
You can make homemade gift tags out of brown paper bags or old greeting cards. Or give greeting cards printed on seed paper, that can then be planted in the garden.
If you celebrate with a holiday tree, consider getting a living one, or get creative and make your own tree, like some of our employees do each year.
Rather than shopping, how about saving money and reducing waste by making homemade gifts like cookies, spiced nuts, candles, flavored sugar, vanilla extract, ornaments, or home-grown plants. You could start a tradition of going for a walk outside in a park to clean up garbage. And while you’re out there, collect some pine cones and tree branches for some holiday decorating!
If you’re traveling for the holidays, when booking flights you can use sites such as Google Flights or Kayak to see the carbon footprint of each flight, and pick the one with the lowest footprint. Then consider offsetting those carbon emissions through companies such as Terrapass or Sustainable Travel.
Get creative this year, save money AND the planet!
