Sustainable Christmas Gift Guide
Updated: Sep 13, 2022
Ah, Christmas! The most wonderful time of the year! However, for many, it is a time spent with family they don’t like, swapping disappointing gifts and wasting food. It’s a mash-up of mindless consumerism, stress, avoidable travel and excess.
It’s a disaster for the planet too, with an extra 30% waste produced and along with an extra 280 kg of CO2e per UK adult. So how do we make this more eco-friendly? Let’s tackle Christmas presents and how to responsibly gift during the holidays.
1. Choose something made from recycled materials
There are so many virgin goods made from raw materials on the planet. If we do choose to buy someone a physical gift then make it one that’s made from recycled materials instead. There are literally thousands of gifts that you could choose from, here are just a few examples:
Recycled Elephant Poo Stationery:
Recycled plastic bottle Duck Head Umbrella:
Recycled colander light fitting:
2. Choose something that will help them be more eco-friendly
It feels good to be green, so if you must give the gift of giving then share the love for eco-friendly stuff. Help others start their sustainable journey by giving them a zero-waste starter kit or the Bible for everything carbon footprint related:
How Bad Are Bananas? By Mike Berners-Lee
Zero waste starter kit (bag, bottle and coffee mug)
3. Choose Trees
There are some wonderful presents to be bought but I love the gifting of trees. With Ecologi you can choose different packages to give a special someone something unique and very long-lasting.
Buy a present of different amounts of real trees, from 100 up to a whole forest of 100,000 or by gifting “climate action”, which includes tree-planting and carbon offsets via humanitarian and biodiversity protection projects.
4. Choose a gift of services
Most of the time people are really busy and could do with a helping hand. Christmas is even busier and more stressful for many people so offering a service can be a use