Valentine’s Day is a sweet opportunity to show your loved ones extra care and appreciation. But most Valentine’s Day traditions -- like gifting cards, flowers, and chocolate -- actually have a huge carbon footprint. To help you show love to your friends, family, or partner, while also showing love to the planet, we’ve assembled this little guide to celebrating Valentine’s Day the sustainable way.

Opt for homemade cards and valentines.

The pretty greeting cards sold in stores are usually decorated with cellophane, glitter, foil, and plastic. But unless these valentines are made 100% from paper -- or you remove all the fancy add-ons -- most are not recyclable.

Store-bought cards are certainly fun, but nothing says “I love you” like a handwritten note inside a homemade card. By making your own valentines, you can feel good knowing that your card is designed to your loved one’s personality. They’ll love receiving a heartfelt message letting them know exactly how much they mean to you.

Gift sustainable chocolate.

Chocolate is a Valentine’s Day staple, but its production, distribution, and packaging all add up to a huge environmental impact. After all, most chocolate is still made using palm oil, and the cultivation of these palm trees is a major cause of deforestation in the countries where cocoa is farmed. Furthermore, since most of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa and Latin America, shipping and transporting all those beans comes with high carbon costs. When you consider the other ingredients involved in chocolate production -- such as cane sugar, vanilla, and milk -- the result is the equivalent of six ounces of carbon dioxide from the production of just one chocolate bar!

One way to reduce your carbon footprint this Valentine’s Day is by gifting organic, fair trade chocolate. This way, you’re supporting fairly paid workers and farmers that grow the chocolate in safe and environmentally friendly working conditions.

Feeling creative? You could also make your own homemade candy (here are some recipes we love!), bake a fresh batch of baked goods, or give your sweetie a jar of local honey.

Let love grow.

Roses are everywhere during Valentine’s season. After all, flowers are a classic gift that don’t require a ton of effort to get, even if you wait until the very last minute. But the ubiquity and accessibility of Valentine’s Day roses obscure the long, complex journey they have to take from the greenhouse to your house, and the environmental costs that add up along the way.

Because Valentine’s Day falls during the coldest time of the year, most roses have to be flown in from sunny Latin America. Once they make it to the United States, these flowers are transported all over the country in refrigerated trucks and then delivered to individual homes and offices. All in all, the 100+ million roses that make this journey every year produce 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year. And after all that effort to transport roses in time for Valentine’s Day, they usually end up only lasting around a week!

Slow Flowers’ website includes a directory of more than 700 growers in the United States and Canada who will have flowers available for Valentine’s Day -- but most won’t be roses. Instead, these growers offer “early spring crops that can be grown in greenhouses,” like ranunculus, anemones, tulips, narcissus, and hellebores. These flowers are a much more sustainable option since they are grown locally and the transportation costs are lower.

You could also go a slightly different route this year and gift living flowers. After all, houseplants can help purify the air inside your home, bring a touch of the outdoors inside, and can live for years with proper care. Choose a plant based on your loved one’s aptitude for keeping plants alive: An orchid might not be the best choice for a novice, but a colorful succulent in a cute pot is a great gift for anyone. Plus, isn’t a living, long-term plant a better symbol for your relationship than a bouquet of cut flowers, anyway?

(Note: If you receive roses for Valentine’s Day this year, there are plenty of ways you can use the petals after they’re dried. Check out these DIY ideas for rose water toner, rose petal bath salts, boho confetti, and even flower petal paper!)

Practice self care the all-natural way.

Whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day single or attached, you can use the holiday as an excuse to check in with yourself and practice self care. Hanging out with friends, attending a yoga class, taking a social media break, or pampering yourself are all fabulous ways to show yourself some love.

If you’re feeling crafty, you can DIY an all-natural face mask or run a bubble bath scented with essential oils. Homemade all-natural lip balm is another opportunity to get creative, and it doubles as a thoughtful Valentine’s Day gift, too.

What will you do to celebrate Valentine’s Day the sustainable way? Let us know in the comments below!

4 Ideas for a Sustainable Valentine’s Day