Ethical Christmas Gift Guide

Buying Books

Books are a real favourite at Christmas. It's always best to try and buy second-hand books, saving you money and trees.  We would recommend that you use NearSt or World of Books. NearSt is an online app that connects you to your nearest local independent shop. Both sell second-hand books. Or use your local second-hand bookshop.

For new books, we would urge people to use radical bookshops or your local independent bookshops.

Find out more in our guide to bookshops, a guide which is freely open to everyone.

Wherever you decide to buy your books from avoid Amazon. That means Amazon, AbeBooks, Audible and the Book Depository. See our Alternatives to Amazon series to help you avoid the online giant. We are running a boycott of Amazon because of its tax avoidance.

Perfume and Aftershave

Perfumers are legally allowed to keep their ingredients list a secret which means it's often hard to work out whether a perfume contains animal ingredients or dodgy toxic chemicals.

However, our Best Buy brands are vegan, which ensures no animal ingredients. Plus they also don’t contain parabens. Read our ‘toxic beauty’ feature to find out why chemicals such as parabens are harmful.

Our Best Buys for perfume and aftershave are Dolma, Fairypants, Neal’s Yard, Kings aftershave and Weleda. They all offer vegan products and are cruelty-free (not tested on animals).

Christmas Clothing

There is now plenty of choice when it comes to sustainable fashion brands. 

We recommend Know the Origin, Brothers We Stand, and People Tree*. There are also plenty more in our newly updated shopping guide for ethical clothes shops.

We also recommend that you read up on the ethical issues in the fashion industry, and find out which clothing materials are sustainable.

Chocolate

Treating friends or family to some delicious chocolates is a great option for Christmas.

Best buys in our guide include the Fairtrade and/or organic certified products from Divine, Pacari, Plamil and Chocolat Madagascar.

If you are looking to avoid palm oil this Christmas, check our list of palm oil free chocolates to see where you can get them. 

Electronics

Buying a new phone or laptop is often a bit of an ethical minefield and we therefore recommend that you buy second-hand or refurbished equipment wherever possible. See our guide to buying second hand tech.

If you do want to buy new, we recommend:

Bikes

If you a willing to splurge that little bit more, a bike is the perfect environmentally-friendly gift - and quite often available in good condition second hand! You might have luck at a local DIY bike project. 

If you're looking for something extra special that could help people get on the road without a car, why not look locally to see if anyone is selling an electric bike second hand?

Our ethical shopping guides offer a range of bikes from cargo to electric to help you find the perfect fit.

If you want to buy new, we recommend going to a local independent bike store and seeking out a steel bicycle. 

See our Best Buy picks in the following guides: 

Creative Christmas Hamper

If you can't think of a particular gift, why not put together a hamper full of ethical goodies. Make your own jam or buy some palm-oil free biscuits. 

See the following guides for inspiration: 

Places to Buy

There are lots of ethical online retailers such as Ethical Shop and Veo.world. Ethical Consumer subscribers qualify for a discount at the Ethical Shop. Sign in and visit the My account area for the discount code. 

*We have an affiliate deal with this shop. Ethical Consumer makes a small amount of money from your purchase. This goes to fund our research and campaigning. We ethically screen all the sites we link to.