We encourage you to think of the environmental impact of gifts and celebrations this year, by purchasing low waste or local gifts and food.
Buying locally made gifts is a great way to support your local economy while looking after the planet, resulting in fewer miles travelled, and therefore a smaller carbon footprint. These items can also have a more transparent, shorter supply chain, making it easier for you to know what goes into your products and where they come from!
Buying from local businesses often also means less packaging (especially when you take your own bag), it saves the layers of bubble wrap, plastic wrap, and cardboard which usually comes with online orders! All of these benefits and more come with buying locally grown!
You can often buy plastic free, locally grown, organic vegetables from local markets and farm shops which are kinder to the planet, and better for you too.
If you’re looking to add some environmentally themed content into your routine, we’ve pulled together a list of documentaries that tackle different aspects of sustainability.
From food waste to fast fashion and climate change, you can learn a bit about the issues impacting our planet and how you can help.
The views expressed in these documentaries do not necessarily represent our own, but highlight key environmental issues.
Climate change, pollution and conservation
- 2040
- A Life on Our Planet
- A Plastic Planet
- Our Planet
- Chasing Ice
- Chasing Coral
- Before the Flood
- Years of Living Dangerously (Docu TV series)
- Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
- Racing Extinction
- Ice on Fire
- Climate Refugee
- An Inconvenient Sequel
Fast Fashion
Food Waste
- Rotten (Docu TV series)
- Sustainable
For adults, head over to Sustainable Jungle for a lovely selection of books.
For children, we’ve listed our favourite eco-themed books below:
Recycling
- Recycling and Rubbish, Stephanie Turnbull. Usborne
- Dinosaurs and all that rubbish, Michael Foreman. Puffin books
- I can save the Earth, Alison inches. Little Green Books
- The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle, Alison Inches. Little Green Books
- Michael Recycle, Ellie Bethel. IDW Publishing
Litter
- The Rubbish Monster Thing by Simon Chadwick. Ceratopia Books
- One Little Bag: An Amazing Journey, Henry Cole. Scholastic Press
Sustainability
- 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World, Melanie Walsh. Candlewick Press
- Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, Oliver Jeffers. Penguin Young Readers
- George saves the world by lunchtime, Jo Readman. Eden Project Books
- The Tin Forest by Helen Ward. Dutton Books
- Iron Man by Ted Hughes. Faber & Faber
- What a waste by Jess French. DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley)
- Harry Saves the Ocean by Sylvia Fae. N.G.K.