Summer is the time for celebrations. And celebrate we do! We enjoy barbecue with friends; family get together parties; graduation celebration; weddings and many more. Great people, food and drink, music and dancing makes the party.
In our everyday life we try to minimise the size of our eco-backpacks, take the bus, save electricity and go for the seasonal food. How about the special days, do we forget environmental conscious choices then? Or is it even necessary to think about the environment on those special occasions? They say it is much more important what you do in your everyday life since you don’t have a party each day. But if you are the host you have a great opportunity to affect the eco-backpack of the occasion.
Few simple rules make it easy to lighten the eco-backpack of the party. First of all, transport. If you have 20 guests and they all travel 100 kilometres back and forth it makes total 2000 passenger kilometres. If you can, choose the venue so that travelling of the quests is minimised. In addition to travelled kilometres, it is important that people can use the public transport. If not possible would it be worth to arrange bus transportation for instance?
Another important thing is food. Remember that the eco-backpack of one kilogram of beef is about 46 kg and one kilo of apples carries a backpack of only 2 kilograms. Go easy on the meat and cheese and enjoy the delicious and fresh veggies, fruits and berries of the season. There is no need to turn your feast totally vegetarian or vegan but pay attention to the meat and cheese vs. veggie ratio.
What about the gifts? If you feel you have everything you need, let people know about it. Guests can be asked to bring some food or drink instead. If it is more formal event maybe you can ask people to donate some money for a charity you appreciate. The real eco-geeks could say that best present for them is that people take the bike, bus, train or shared ride to come to the party.
If you are not the host but the guest, what can you do then? Always respect the choices and wishes of the host. If a gift list is awailable it is good idea to stick with that to avoid giving stuff not needed. When it comes to dining, maybe you can ask in advance if a vegetarian choice will be available on the menu? Probably the best thing you can do to lighten your eco-backpack is to go for public transport or ask someone to share a ride with you.
True eco-warriors can find numerous ways to make their celebrations even more green. However, taking into account the few points mentioned here you are already doing significant actions to lighten the eco-backpack of your party. Have fun!
Showing posts with label gift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gift. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Skip the useless stuff, say no to freebies
Haven’t we laughed at the “free gifts” you are supposed to get when ordering something from the TV-shop. Bundle of useless products are told to offer value for your money. Really?
All sorts of gifts are also mentioned when you get a call from an enthusiastic salesperson. While listening you wonder if he is selling you the magazine or all the cosmetics, jewellery and stuff. If the gift is very stylish and you think the magazine is ok maybe you decide to make the subscription. At least you get the nice designer handbag if the magazine is no good.
Even if I try to be very conscious and say no thanks for gifts I honestly don’t need, it is not always easy. For instance when buying some cosmetics it is difficult to say no for samples you think are useful, well at least useful in a sense that cosmetic samples can be.
The freebies question was recently brought up by one of my friends in Facebook. She wrote on status update that she got some goodies from a bakery for free and raised the question why we are so happy about the things we get for free. While we are trying to figure out rational reasons for this very primitive behaviour the marketing agencies take a full advantage of all this. If the samples, gifts and freebies wouldn’t encourage us to buy more, there would be none of them available.
Basically there are two points why the rational person in me is irritated by the gifts. The first thing you come across when you are about to move and need to pack all your stuff. Many of those lovely gifts you find from the bottom of baskets and the back end of the closets, right behind a jacket you haven’t used for five years. You wonder why on earth you have accepted to take all this stuff even if you knew from the beginning that you would never make use of it. The next destination of all this stuff will be the recycling centre where customers wonder who in the first place decided to have an item like that. At some point, the lovely gifts will end at the landfill or incineration plant.
The second point is that even if the gift is ok, is the product itself something you’d really need? A good question to ask oneself is if you’d skip the gift, would you still buy the product?
My strategy is to let the salesperson to know that I don’t want the gift; I’m only interested about the real product. This also works on the other way round; if the original product is very poor you can say that the freebie doesn’t make it better. What is your strategy?
All sorts of gifts are also mentioned when you get a call from an enthusiastic salesperson. While listening you wonder if he is selling you the magazine or all the cosmetics, jewellery and stuff. If the gift is very stylish and you think the magazine is ok maybe you decide to make the subscription. At least you get the nice designer handbag if the magazine is no good.
Even if I try to be very conscious and say no thanks for gifts I honestly don’t need, it is not always easy. For instance when buying some cosmetics it is difficult to say no for samples you think are useful, well at least useful in a sense that cosmetic samples can be.
The freebies question was recently brought up by one of my friends in Facebook. She wrote on status update that she got some goodies from a bakery for free and raised the question why we are so happy about the things we get for free. While we are trying to figure out rational reasons for this very primitive behaviour the marketing agencies take a full advantage of all this. If the samples, gifts and freebies wouldn’t encourage us to buy more, there would be none of them available.
Basically there are two points why the rational person in me is irritated by the gifts. The first thing you come across when you are about to move and need to pack all your stuff. Many of those lovely gifts you find from the bottom of baskets and the back end of the closets, right behind a jacket you haven’t used for five years. You wonder why on earth you have accepted to take all this stuff even if you knew from the beginning that you would never make use of it. The next destination of all this stuff will be the recycling centre where customers wonder who in the first place decided to have an item like that. At some point, the lovely gifts will end at the landfill or incineration plant.
The second point is that even if the gift is ok, is the product itself something you’d really need? A good question to ask oneself is if you’d skip the gift, would you still buy the product?
My strategy is to let the salesperson to know that I don’t want the gift; I’m only interested about the real product. This also works on the other way round; if the original product is very poor you can say that the freebie doesn’t make it better. What is your strategy?
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