Ethical & green gifts
My Mother is hard to please. If it's not chocolate, flowers, or something from Marks and Spencer, then the chances are she won't like it. Not surprisingly I've exhausted every possible combination of the above for previous Mother's days, until last year when I gave up (well... technically I forgot, but she doesn't need to know that). Mother's day 2010 falls on 14th March, so here are six ethical gift ideas which will please the planet just as much as the pickiest of Mothers.
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Galleries
Old milk cartons, used party poppers and empty drinks cans sound to me like a list of things to rinse, sort and put in the correctly coloured bins with no thought to how they might be reincarnated.
Well, apparently there is an art to recycling, and these objects have been used to make some the most interesting and individual art around. Recycled art tends to be commission based because of its unique nature, and is the perfect way to be green whilst getting your hands on a one-off work of art. See our gallery to discover recycling in a new light, and to find out the true meaning of one man's trash being another man's treasure...
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Transport & travel
Track down a rural hideaway with The Soil Association's new Holiday Organic web directory.
All produce foods to the Soil Association's organic standards and the nature of organic farming means they are likely to have a good mix of animals and crops, setting the scene for a fab rustic retreat.
Browse your way down country lanes and through the gates of nearly 200 working organic farms welcoming visitors to tied cottages, farm buildings, campsites and the odd yurt.
Some may give the energetic a chance to get their hands dirty and most will offer a taste of their produce, whether it be breakfast or a full meal from the field, kitchen garden or orchard.
Visitors can browse Holiday Organic by English region, Scotland & Wales, with a particularly strong showing for England's West Midlands and South West, home to a quarter of the country's organic farms. To explore, go to Holiday Organic in the Take Action area of the Soil Association website: www.soilassociation.org.
Fairtrade
Between the 22nd February and the 7th of March, Fairtrade are celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight 2010. The fortnight is a chance to raise awareness of Fairtrade values and to help change the lives of disadvantaged workers worldwide. Here are some simple ways that you can become part of making a change, and it even involves drinking as much beer, tea and coffee as you can manage...
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Fairtrade
Ben and Jerry are world famous for their ice cream, a range of flavours with cutesy names and packaging ('Yes Pecan!' a new flavour created for Barack Obama's inauguration is my favourite name). Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield started the company in 1978 after taking a correspondence course in ice cream making and have always focused on making their product and practices the best possible ethically, socially and environmentally, using free range eggs, sustainable dairy farming programmes and starting initiatives like the Climate Change College. The company was taken over in 2000 by multinational corporation Unilever, to wails of dismay and cries that they were selling out, but the brand has managed to remain ethical in its operation, today announcing its commitment to go 100% Fairtrade by the end of 2011. Hippyshopper caught up with Ben and Jerry for a short chat as they launched 100 Fair trades in Leicester Square this morning.
Q: Nowadays most companies are increasingly aware of ethical issues, as are consumers, whereas previously they weren't so prevalent. When you guys started out, what made you so environmentally and socially aware as a central concern of your company?
Ben: I just think it's what we cared about as people and then as the business started becoming larger we felt like we were in danger of just becoming another part of the corporate machine that tends to exploit the society and the community and the environment and its workers. We made a very conscious decision to only continue the business if we could find a way to use the business to be beneficial to the society and the environment and its workers and that began an experiment 25 years ago. You know, socially responsible business did not exist at the time and we had no idea whether we were going to be successful at it or not.
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Fashion & accessories
Bulldog has become the first male grooming company to launch a range of Fairtrade products. The new range, which consists of Bulldog Eco-System Shave Gel and Bulldog Eco-System Moisturiser will launch ahead of Fairtrade Fortnight (22nd February to 4th March).
The new products include amazing natural Fairtrade ingredients from across the globe. The range contains green tea from Sri Lanka, organic shea butter from Ghana, organic sugar from Paraguay, sesame seed oil from Nicaragua, and Brazil nut oil from Peru.
Bulldog Eco-System Shave Gel - (175ml, RRP £3.69) - Containing Fairtrade Green Tea from Sri Lanka, Organic Sugar from Paraguay and a unique blend of eight essential oils to soothe the skin following the rigors of shaving.
Bulldog Eco-System Moisturiser - (100ml, RRP £6.49) - Containing Fairtrade organic shea butter from Ghana, Fairtrade sesame seed oil from Nicaragua and Fairtrade Brazil nut oil from Peru and a unique blend of eight essential oils to hydrate the skin.
The Bulldog range was born out of frustration that there were no options available for switched-on men who wanted to reduce the number of man-made chemicals in their bathrooms.
The Fairtrade Foundation was established to focus on better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices (which must never fall lower than the market price), Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest and weakest producers.
It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives. More than 7 million people now benefit from Fairtrade, with products coming from 58 developing countries all around the world.
Galleries
So, summer is just around the corner....Well, not quite, but post-Christmas is definitely an acceptable time to start getting excited about it without everyone thinking you're insane. Want to see some eco-friendly holiday ideas to inspire your daydreaming?
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