What Is The Hidden Environmental Cost Of Gifted Experiences?

Experiences as gifts are a great way to skip gifting clutter and creating waste. That’s why our Sustainable Gift List has such a large section dedicated to experiences. But does that mean experiences have no environmental cost? It’s a question Michelle at Boomer Eco Crusader looks into this month as she starts off our Climate Change Collective conversation. While I remain a huge fan of gifting experiences, it isn’t something that should be done blindly without thinking of the environmental cost of gifting experiences and how one might be a better option than another.

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The recent “6 Ways to Reduce the Environmental Cost of Experiences” post is a part of our Climate Change Collective series. In this series, one blogger writes a topical post and the Climate Change Collective participants write a response to their post, sharing thoughts or more information on the topic. Learn more about our Climate Change Collective at the end of this post and find our first in the series here: Climate Change Collective–What You Can Do.

In reality, there are environmental costs associated with both goods and services. In some cases, replacing physical goods with experiences may increase our carbon footprint.

Michelle, Boomer Eco Crusader

Is there an environmental cost to gifted experiences?

This topic was incredibly timely as my birthday was last month and I have some exciting gifted experiences happening. It is important to remember that no matter what we are doing or spending our money on, there will be some impact on the world around us. This is one reason why I’ve shared thoughts on being a conscious consumer and shopping habits, diving into the questions we need to be asking ourselves before spending money.

Experiences may be better than physical gifts that cause clutter or items that will get tossed in the garbage, but is there a better experience we can be gifting?

In her post, Michelle shares about the environmental impacts of the tourism industry and travel, as well as visible waste that litters our walkways after large events. These are very real and evident environmental costs from gifted experiences.

Examples of Gifted Experiences and their Environmental Footprint

Since I have some birthday gift experiences happening, let’s take a look at how my gifts are faring on the sustainable, environmentally friendly side of things.

Taking a Mini Vacay

Getting away–even for a staycation–is such a wonderful break.

The gift: A weekend away
I feel so lucky to be whisked away for a weekend to Victoria, BC. It’s a city that is a few hours from where I live, but since we have to travel across part of the ocean to get there it feels a world away.

Ways we’re keeping the environmental impact of this gift smaller:
Though we did choose to drive for our trip, we chose a centrally located hotel where we can walk to all our touristy destinations from. The plan for the weekend is to simply leave the car parked and enjoy the city by foot. Meals out are definitely on the agenda, but we also planned certain meals and snacks to take with us–all with reusable containers and utensils, of course.

Ways this gift has a bigger environmental impact:
Any travel is going to create some sort of emissions and have an environmental footprint. Choosing to drive to Victoria instead of taking public transportation means making a bigger imprint. While packing food to try and minimize waste is the goal, small meals out or coffees while exploring will create some waste.

A Night Out for the Show

I am a big fan of supporting the arts. Whether it’s dance, film, theatre, music, or other artistic genre, I am an advocate for supporting these performances because I think they offer a unique experience and allow us to escape the world for a brief moment. One thing I feel a lot of us learned during the pandemic was how healing and essential the arts are for our lives. It is for mine at least!

The gift: Tickets to see my favourite drag queen

Ways we’re keeping the environmental impact of this gift smaller:
Since this show is close to home, we are able to take public transportation to the venue. This gift and tickets were all given to me electronically, so there was no need to waste paper printing anything out.

Ways this gift has a bigger environmental impact:
The biggest environmental impact I can think of for this show would be the travel of the main artist. Every performance or show will have some big picture impact, but from a personal accountability point of view, we will be able to keep our footprint quite small with this experience. There was no “stuff” associated with this gift, but I’ll likely support the artist by buying their book at the show.

Measure the Environmental Cost of your Experience

If you have read my “Questions to Consider as you Become a More Conscious Consumer” post, then you know that I like to think through a purchase before making it. I’m a self-confessed over-thinker, so you don’t have to go as far as I do, but a little reflection can be a positive thing.

When making the choice to gift an experience, consider the environmental cost of your gift and whether there is a better choice.

• How are you travelling?
  – Train versus plane
  – Public transit versus driving a car
  
• What food choices are you making?
  – Take out with disposable packaging versus staying in at a restaurant/packing your own food
  
• What souvenirs are you buying?
  – Long lasting and meaningful versus impulse purchases and disposable
  – Ethically or locally made versus mass-produced with a lot of plastic

For more ways to reduce the environmental cost of gifted experiences, take a look at Michelle’s post as she’s sharing some great ideas.

What do you think about the hidden environmental cost of gifted experiences?

How do you feel about experiences as gifts? Have you ever thought about the environmental cost of gifted experiences?

About the Climate Change Collective

The Climate Change Collective was born out of an exchange that took place between Michelle and Jamie in the comments section of a Jamie Ad Stories blog post. Jamie and Michelle both care deeply about the impact of human activity on our planet and wanted to find a way to keep the climate change message top of mind for everyone. A tweet was sent out, bloggers responded, and we’ve all now teamed up to create the Climate Change Collective!

The idea is simple. The members of the collective will take turns writing a monthly blog post sharing their concerns and unique perspective about climate change. After the post is published, the rest of the group will keep the conversation going by sharing a link to the post on their blogs along with their thoughts and ideas. If you’re a like-minded blogger and would like to join our collective, please get in touch. The more the merrier!

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