25 Best Eco-Friendly Gifts Ideas for 2024

Last Updated on November 7, 2024

Looking for fun but eco-friendly gifts for those special people in your life? Here are dozens of suggestions for everyone on your list. This collection of creative and eco-friendly gift ideas will help you give greener this year, and might even save you money.

WHY & HOW TO CHOOSE ECO-FRIENDLY GIFTS

As you make your list and check it twice, challenge yourself to give greener this year. The last decade has seen a huge shift in awareness about the costly environmental footprint of so much of our stuff, and people around the globe are coming to recognize that we need to be far better stewards of our common home.

This season, help create a better future for your loved ones by thinking carefully about the impact of your holiday traditions and gift-giving. There are so many options for fantastic eco-friendly gifts for everyone on your list that keep the holiday spirit without the huge eco-footprint.

Below are some top ideas for eco-friendly gifts to help you give greener this season.

Eco-Friendly Gifts Strategy #1: Think Outside the Box

The ultimate eco-friendly gifts aren’t things.

Consider giving experiences, like theater tickets or museum passes, or a homemade certificate for something the recipient would enjoy, like your from-scratch bread, a knitting lesson, a garage clean-out, babysitting, or a date night.

Give a New Skill

Consider giving a gift of knowledge with a class in a skill they can use for a lifetime. Many fantastic courses are available online, like these:

• Courses taught by world-renowned experts in numerous fields from Masterclass: Learn cooking with Alice Waters or Wolfgang Puck or gardening with Ron Finley. Musically-inclined folks on your list can take classes with artists ranging from Yo-Yo Ma to Mariah Carey. 
• Courses on foraging and using herbs. The Herbal Academy runs numerous online foraging and herbalism courses. Here’s a list of the courses they’re currently enrolling.

• Classes on mixology, cooking, crafts, and more from Uncommon Goods.
• Courses on meal planning or saving on groceries. Don’t Waste the Crumbs’ Grocery Budget Bootcamp and Meal Planning Bootcamp will help your loved one master meal planning and save them money on healthy food.
• Cooking classes for kids: My kids and I had a great time and learned a ton with the Kids Cook Real Food online course. You can get a course for kids at different levels, or buy the VIP package that includes lifetime access to all their classes. Find out more about Kids Cook Real Food here

Give Knowledge

E-books are another eco-friendly gift idea, adding to your favorite life-long learner’s digital library. Consider e-books on gardening, cookbooks, or how-to-guides like this one on crafting your own body care from The Herbal Spoon. My book on elderberries is also out in a Kindle edition. Here are some more books about gardening you can find electronically or in hardcopy.

A Kindle Unlimited subscription allows the recipient to choose from an astonishing array of titles on any subject.

Do they prefer to listen to their books? An Audible subscription is a fantastic eco-friendly gift, allowing them access to thousands of titles. You can get a gift subscription (or a free trial for yourself!) here.

Check more eco-friendly gift ideas in our herbal gift guide.

Make a Donation in their Name

Have one of those people on your list who really doesn’t want anything? Consider making a donation in their name to a cause they care about.

Check out Heifer International’s array of options if you’re looking for something with far-reaching positive impact, like tree seedlings for a family to start an orchard. Use your imagination and think about what might be appreciated more than yet another gadget or article of clothing.

Eco-Friendly Gifts Strategy #2: Give Gifts People Will Actually Use

Eco-friendly Food Gifts

Food is a great one-size-fits-all eco-friendly gift idea and can range from simple homemade treats to fancy chocolates. Some fun options:

• Local honey or maple syrup
• Snazzy chocolate bars or gift boxes
• Dried fruit, either bought or dried yourself. You can also try an easy fruit leather, like this healthy, 3-ingredient apple-pear leather. Or try some of these inventive uses for orange peels!
• Unusual teas from your natural food shop or specialty tea store in pretty glass containers, homemade herbal tea blends, or prepackaged options. Mountain Rose Herbs is a fantastic source for high-quality herbs. Here are 30 more ideas for gifts for tea lovers.
• Homemade snacks or treats (Spiced roasted chickpeas and chocolate fruit and nut clusters are two of my favorites and meet my healthy, green, and easy criteria. Someone on your list might also go for homemade fruit leather or delicious chewy dried bananas or apples.)
• Kits-in-a-jar: fill with everything needed for a homemade soup or batch of cookies or homemade elderberry syrup.

In need of some other easy homemade eco-friendly gift ideas? Here are more than 25 easy homemade gifts for the not-so-crafty!

Check out more homemade edible gift ideas and 25 holiday gifts to make from your garden from Little Sprouts Learning.

Eco-friendly Gifts of Relaxation:

• Essential oils for adding to baths or homemade cleaners
• DIY bath salts (as simple as dropping a little essential oil in epsom salts. No idea why already-made ones cost so much!)
• An easy homemade sugar scrub using ingredients you already have in your kitchen.
•  Here are instructions for (and inspiring pictures of) a bunch of other decadent homemade lotions and balms from Kristin at Live Simply.

Need more homemade gift ideas? Check out this list of gifts you can make yourself from Little Sprouts Learning!

Check out some of the special holiday deals I track in this post, updated regularly starting in November!

Tools that Enable an Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

You can also find gifts that keep on giving, including kits that allow people to grow their own mushrooms or herbs or make things, like vegetable noodles. Here are some ideas:

• Mushroom farm or grow-your-own herb kit. Growing your own gourmet ingredients is fun and satisfying. (Saves money, too.)
• Popcorn popper. Most microwave popcorn contains some pretty unsavory ingredients, and bags are often lined with PFOA, a chemical linked to a range of health concerns.  Help someone in your life break the unhealthy microwave popcorn habit with one of these awesome air poppers.  Fill a mason jar with some organic popcorn from the bulk bins at your natural foods store and tie with pretty string or ribbon.
• Spiralizer. Turns all kind of veggies into “noodles” that let you get in more veggie servings.
• Gardeners might enjoy some new equipment, like sturdy gardening gloves or a good pair of shears.
• Cooks might appreciate a good new knife or cast-iron pan to replace an old teflon-coated one.
• Artistic and crafty folk will enjoy supplies for their projects.

Related: Gifts for Gardeners ~ Give the Gift of Growing this Season!

Eco-Friendly Gifts Strategy #3: Shrink Their Footprint (and Save Them Money)

Home Soda Maker
Does someone in your life drink a lot of soda? Help them kick the habit, save money, and slash their foodprint with a home soda maker. Add a slice of fruit or a little juice and you have a refreshing spritzer without the chemicals and sugar.

Store-bought soda and seltzer have a pretty gigantic ecological footprint, and it’s easy to make your own at home without all the artificial flavors and additives. They’ll save a bundle not buying all those cans and bottles and help slash their contribution to carbon pollution.

Travel mug
Do you have some folks on your list who buy a lot of coffee out?  They can save money by bringing coffee they make at home, or get a discount at their local coffee shop for bringing their own mug. And these nice looking insulated metal mugs are so much cooler than wasteful throwaway cups and don’t expose them to all the chemicals in takeaway cups and tops.

Related: Healthy Gifts ~ Give the Gift of Good Health!

Glass or metal water bottles.
Plastic water bottles waste money and resources, and expose people to chemicals leached from the plastic into the water. One of these stylish bottles will save the recipient hundreds of dollars a year over buying bottles, while keeping unnecessary pollutants out of our environment. (Check out Annie Leonard’s awesome film on bottled water if you’re not convinced this is a habit to break as soon as possible.)

Find loads more zero-waste products at Life Without Plastic, everything from bamboo combs and toothbrushes to metal storage containers.

Battery charger 
This one’s perfect for the person who has everything and likes saving money. A rapid charger with an assortment of batteries guarantees they’ll never be out of batteries for cordless tools and flashlights again. Plus they won’t have to buy batteries all the time.

Save money and keep all that unnecessary waste out of the landfill– what’s not to like? (If you don’t already have one, a charger might be a smart investment for your family as well. Here’s more on why to avoid single-use batteries.)

Eco-Friendly Gifts Strategy #4: Choose Sustainably-Made and Upcycled Products

More and more artisans are making beautiful objects from upcycled and sustainably-sourced materials. You can find loads of eco-friendly gifts on Etsy, including affordable jewelry, keychains, and bud vases made from upcycled silverware or mittens made from recycled wool sweaters.

Viva Terra is another source for beautiful, sustainably-made things for the home or garden. Whether it’s beautiful bowls and serving pieces made from reclaimed wood or garden accents, you’ll find something unique to give.

Here are loads more handmade gifts you can buy to delight friends and family this season.

Don’t forget to green your wrapping!

Skip the one-use wrapping paper and get creative with fabric, recycled gift bags and boxes, and fabric ribbon. Kris at Attainable Sustainable has a great collection of greener gift wrapping ideas. Fabric scraps (even pillowcases) can be used year after year, so your holidays don’t create a mountain of trash. Here are 7 waste-free alternatives to gift wrap from Finding Our Green Life. Here’s a cool tutorial on how to make gift bags from old shirt sleeves from Design Life Hacks.

But even if you’re not handy with a needle, you can use a pretty scarf to wrap a present by securing it with some fabric ribbon. We have a stash of old scarves and fabric squares that come out each year and get stowed for the next year after everyone’s opened their gifts.

Try decorating packages with some pretty natural greens or homemade dried orange slices for a gorgeous natural touch.

Check out these suggestions for a waste-free holiday from Everchange Productions. Lori at Groovy Green Livin’ has even more ideas for greening your holidays here. Or listen to the Green Divas’ eco-friendly holiday podcast while you’re making your own gifts (like these beautiful crafts that kids can make at Rhythms of Play.) Looking for kids toys? Check out this guide from Rhythms of Play.

Eco-friendly bonus points: Upcycle your Christmas tree! Check out these cool herbal ways to reuse your Christmas tree from The Pistachio Project!

Be sure to check out our many gift guides for more green and healthy gift inspiration!

I hope some of these suggestions give you the inspiration you needed! What are your best ideas for eco-friendly gifts this year? Leave a comment!

Pin to save these eco-friendly gifts ideas for later!

Photo credits for eco-friendly gifts ideas: Cali4beach, Jessica Reeder, Daria-Yakovleva, rawpixel