How to be more sustainable this festive season

Hi, I'm Chloë, and I'm a student at Falmouth University. 

As a student, we all have budgets, and it can be really difficult to find gifts for people in the festive season. I'm going to give you a couple of ideas on how to be more sustainable and hopefully save you a bit of money.

Give the gift of photos

Being a photography student, photography is my go to; so printing photos can save you some money but also can be a really personal gift.

Get crafting with homemade gifts

If you're a really creative individual, you might be able to make your friends and family some Christmas presents. I personally really love making cyanotypes and I also crochet too.

Making people Christmas cards is also easy, you can go straight to your nearest craft shop. Most shops will sell blank cards. You can then decorate them. I got myself some ink from Hobby Craft and a really nice stamp and created these Christmas cards. The cards that I use are also made from recycled paper.

Pinecones are really easy way to decorate for your house and they're free! You can find them on the ground, you just need to know where to look for them... they're under pine trees!

If you look in charity shops you might find some festive decorations and some Christmas cards. If you're buying wrapping paper, maybe consider looking at the label and see if it is fully recyclable. Newspapers are also a great option to wrap your presents in.

Gift an experience

Another thing I'd suggest is perhaps going out with your friends, rather than buying each other presents. Go and find a nice café to have a coffee or go out for a festive drink.

A couple of my favourite places in Falmouth are Windjammer Cafe, Beerwolf Books, Espressini and Dolly's Tea Room. If you haven't been to the Games Room yet I definitely would recommend a visit.

Support small businesses

Shopping with small businesses is a great way of being sustainable. It also helps support those small local businesses.

Spend time with friends and family

An important thing this festive season is making sure you spend time with your friends and family.

Being really thoughtful and spending some really personal time with the people that you love is probably one of the best gifts you can give this year.

Thank you so much for watching this video. I really hope you enjoyed it and you found it useful.

From myself and Falmouth University, I hope you have an amazing festive season.