Green at Heart

With Valentine's Day less than a month away, it's time to start thinking about special gifts, but this year, don't forget the environment.

Buying things may have become a major part of February 14, but we can still make statements with what we buy. Hopefully, one of those statements is, "I love you." Another can be, "I love the planet."

Flowers are a traditional Valentine's gift, but their growth, harvest, and shipment can leave quite an impact on the environment. Therefore, if your gift plans include flowers, consider Organic Bouquet. As the name implies, the company sells organically grown flowers. It also operates under fair-trade policies and offsets the carbon footprint of its operations and shipments.

What is more, by going to the company's Flowers for Good page, you can choose flower arrangements that benefit nonprofit groups. Organic Bouquet donates a portion of the proceeds from the arrangements to various charities, including animal and environmental groups. Just look through the different arrangements and see what charity each one supports. Personally, I like the Defenders of Wildlife and the Audubon Society arrangements.

This is a great way to make sure Nature gets a Valentine too.
♡

Web of Green Goodness

In a previous post, I talked about using wise-giving standards to choose a charity. If that entry helped you find a charity or if you already had a favorite charity, you might be interested in a way of harnessing the Web to produce more money for your charity of choice.

GoodSearch (http://www.goodsearch.com/) is a search engine that allows you to turn your online searches and shopping into donations for your charity at no cost to you. All you have to do is verify that GoodSearch has the charity in its databank. Then, when you use GoodSearch to conduct Internet searches, the search engine donates to that charity. You can also use GoodSearch's GoodShop function to earn money for the charity while making online purchases. Many online vendors, including Amazon, iTunes, Overstock, and Barnes and Noble participate, so just start your shopping at GoodSearch. You will find a link to the vendor you want to use, and after you click that, you will be able to support your charity as you shop without paying extra. 

The charities GoodSearch benefits include numerous environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, and the National Wildlife Federation. Additionally, many local environmental groups have signed up for GoodSearch as well, so chances are pretty good that those of you who want to use the service to support a favorite environmental cause will be able to do so.