{"id":191,"date":"2012-02-14T13:05:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T20:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sdc-sage-editing.com\/sdc-sagewit\/?p=191"},"modified":"2012-02-14T17:39:14","modified_gmt":"2012-02-15T00:39:14","slug":"break-out-of-the-heart-shaped-box-this-valentine%e2%80%99s-day-be-creative-and-think-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdc-sage-editing.com\/sdc-sagewit\/?p=191","title":{"rendered":"Break out of the Heart-shaped Box this Valentine\u2019s Day: Be Creative and Think Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best things<\/em><\/strong>\"Organic<\/a> in life are free\u2014except in the middle of February.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Valentine\u2019s Day often feels like an odd \u201choliday\u201d to me. It\u2019s supposed to be a celebration of love, a gift that is freely given, yet we\u2019ve been convinced that we have to spend a small fortune one day a year to show how much we love someone. Saint Valentine\u2019s Day allegedly started as an observance of two martyrs, both named Valentine, who sacrificed their lives to help others. The observance had no connection with romantic love prior to a poem written by Chaucer in the fourteenth century. By the late fifteenth century, the emphasis of Valentine\u2019s Day was on exchanging tokens of affection between lovers within the upper classes, the nobility, with no mention of the martyred saints.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m all for expressing affection for our loved ones. It would be a much kinder world if we practiced the underlying premises of Valentine\u2019s Day\u2014occasionally putting another person’s needs before our own and showing our loved ones that we care about them\u2014every day instead of just one day out of the year. What leaves me increasingly cool towards Valentine\u2019s Day is the excessive hype and commercialization that has transformed it into one more opportunity for an economy hooked on consumer spending to rake in billions of dollars[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ability of the advertising industry to foster unrealistic expectations\u2014not to mention anxiety about choosing or paying for the \u201cperfect\u201d gift\u2014through carefully crafted story boards that depict ultra-romantic date settings and couples lavishing expensive gifts on each other is disconcerting. Yet even when we realize this, we don\u2019t always know how to increase our immunity to the commercial hype and shut out the siren songs of our consumer culture. I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019ve realized, over the years,\u00a0 that as much as I appreciated them the gifts or the dinner dates given from a sense of obligation just aren’t as sweet as the unexpected gifts or spontaneous expressions of affection.<\/p>\n

Considering that love is supposed to be freely given, there is a mighty high price tag attached to proving\u2014er, I mean demonstrating\u2014our feelings for our nearest and dearest on February 14th<\/sup>, and I\u2019m not referring just to the financial cost of buying presents or paying for an extra special date night[2]<\/a>. How many of us stop to think about the environmental and social costs attached to many of the Valentine\u2019s Day gifts that we buy?<\/p>\n

Make Valentine\u2019s Day planet friendly and fantastic: Give gifts that are fair trade and Organic.\"Roses<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What with the cards, wrapping paper, flowers, clothes, electronic gadgets, chocolate, and jewellery, Valentine\u2019s Day has big feet in terms of the carbon and ecological footprints it leaves behind. The social costs\u2014economic inequalities, health problems, and social injustices\u2014associated with producing many of the traditional Valentine\u2019s Day presents(e.g., chocolate and flowers) are also sobering. The darker side of cacao farming has been well documented by Carol Off in her book Bitter Chocolate<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just cocoa production that is plagued by distasteful labour practices. Many of the labourers in the floriculture, textile and mining industries also endure poor wages, unsafe, and unfair working conditions. Low wages, long hours, and no consequences for failing to provide appropriate safety equipment for workers translate into lower production costs that allow the owners of the production facilities to make a profit and still offer their goods at affordable prices for those of us in the Global North so we can buy chocolates and flowers to show much we love another person. Yet, it isn\u2019t exactly showing a lot of love for our fellow beings on the planet when we benefit economically at their expense, is it?<\/p>\n

The good news is that it is possible to celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day in a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable manner\u2014without decimating your personal long term financial sustainability. In order to raise awareness about fair trade and help people locate and purchase fair trade items, organizations such as the Canadian Fair Trade Network (CFTN) and Fair Trade Vancouver have launched \u201cBe my Fair Valentine\u201d campaigns over the last few years.<\/p>\n

Both the CFTN<\/a> and Fair Trade Vancouver<\/a> websites include information about why it\u2019s important to buy fair trade chocolates and flowers, and where you can find other fair trade items, including jewellery<\/a> made from fairly mined metals and gems and fairly traded handicrafts from around the world. The CFTN also lists sources for eco-friendly clothing, if you’d rather buy clothes as a gift. A note on choosing eco-friendly fashion gifts: According to a seamstress<\/a> (She owns a company called Conscious Elegance and custom makes eco-conscious wedding dresses) whom I recently interviewed for a book project on socially responsible micro-entrepreneurs (Small Business, Big Change: The Microentrepreneur’s Guide to Social Responsibility<\/em><\/a>), you may want to consider both the sustainability of the plant and<\/em><\/strong> the process used to convert the plant into material when assessing the overall eco-friendliness of various fabrics.<\/p>\n

In Vancouver, where I live, Fair Trade Vancouver and Oxfam Canada\u2014a long time advocate of fair trade\u2014teamed up for a flash mob in the downtown shopping area, earlier this month, to promote Fair Trade Vancouver\u2019s \u201cBe my Fair Valentine\u201d campaign and Oxfam\u2019s Unwrapped<\/a> campaign. Rather than giving into the demands of consumerism, and spending money on \u201cstuff\u201d, consider donating money to programs that empower individuals in developing nations to break out of the poverty cycle, either through providing individuals with the resources (e.g. a goat or a beehive) that can generate an income or a micro loan to start a small business. I\u2019ve focused on donation programs that are tied to social justice and economic equality, but you could just as easily make a donation to support the costs of maintaining a sanctuary for animals from neglectful or abusive environments, or to an environmental organization.<\/p>\n

Here are a few other ideas for having a sustainable and happy Valentine\u2019s Day:<\/p>\n