Sustainable Gift Ideas for a Green Holiday Season

The holiday season produces a significant amount of waste over other parts of the year. With the high amount of gifts, dining, shopping, spending, and more, it isn’t hard for waste to pile up. This can make it challenging to focus on sustainability during this time, but it is far from impossible. In fact, many sustainable products make fantastic gifts while still minimizing environmental impact. 

Let’s take a look at some sustainable gift ideas for the holiday season. 

What Does It Mean to Be Sustainable?

Before jumping into the gifts, some people may be wondering what it means to be sustainable. The UCLA Sustainability Committee offers an excellent sustainable definition, which is “the integration of environmental health, social equity, and economic vitality to create thriving, healthy, diverse, and resilient communities for this generation and generations to come.” 

In other words, it consists of practices and products considering finite resources and the planet's longevity. This means choosing gifts that use plant-based or biodegradable materials and recyclable or compostable packaging. 

Gifts with Sustainability in Mind

Now that we’ve covered what sustainability means regarding gifts, let’s look at some ideas. 

Sustainable Cosmetics

Cosmetic items can make a lovely holiday gift, and there are several sustainable cosmetic companies. These include:

• Juice Beauty
• Elate Beauty
• Well People
• And more

The above and more offer all the traditional types of cosmetics, such as lipstick, foundation, eyeliner, etc, but packaged and made from sustainable materials. 

Home Compost Bin

Gifting a home compost bin from Food52 is a perfect way to help others practice sustainability at home. This compact and odor-free compost bin can fit right on the counter to store several days of food scraps. Even better, the bin itself is recyclable. 

Custom Color Recycled Glass Flower Vase

This flower vase from Uncommon Goods is made of recycled glass and comes in different colors. The colors are to represent each birth month’s flowers so they can be customized to the recipient. 

Reusable Sandwich Bags

These sandwich bags from Stasher will quickly replace all of those one-time-use plastic bags. They come in multiple colors, are dishwasher safe, and snap closed with a pinch. Even better, Stasher donates part of its profits to nonprofits that help the planet. 

Personalized Eco-Friendly Notebook

This notebook from Beatific is one of the coolest sustainable gifts. It can be customized in multiple ways, such as the cover design, type and size of paper, and a special message and the giftee’s name can be put on it. This notebook is crafted out of recycled paper and natural mineral-based dye. 

Sustainable Fashion from Not Labeled

Those looking for sustainable fashion options will love our clothing lines here at Not Labeled. We make our clothing from sustainable bamboo viscose that offers superior softness over traditional materials. Whoever receives this gift will have a hard time going back to traditional clothing.