The BusinessGreen Christmas eco-gift guide

Santa comes but once a year, and this year, he's wearing green.

To help you tackle the Christmas shopping scrum, BusinessGreen took a sneaky peak at 10 gift ideas that would be useful for busy executives while also minimising their environmental impact – or reversing it. Here's what we came up with:

Solar-powered backpack
You're about to head off for a trip and you managed to forget to charge your PDA, or your Blackberry, or your iPod, or your electric toothbrush, or whatever. Now, your worries are over thanks to Voltaic Systems' solar-powered bag. The bags come with integrated solar panels, enabling users to charge an iPod for three hours' use with around an hour of sunlight. Don't expect to power your laptop with this – a typical cellphone will take four to six hours – but the bag will be handy for juicing up your device when you're nowhere near a socket and don't have time to spare. Voltaic bags are also made from recycled PET plastic (the kind found in plastic drinks bottles), further minimising their owners' environmental footprint.

Efergy Energy
If you're worried about how much energy you're consuming, you might want a way to measure it. Enter the Efergy energy meter. This device comes in two parts. A measuring device attaches to the utility meter and beams a wireless signal to a digital display that can be positioned anywhere in the home or office. This displays how much energy the meter is using, updated every six seconds, and calculates the financial cost based on your energy pricing, along with your contribution to climate change. The product lets you instantly see the effect of turning off energy consuming devices in the home or at work. Are you sure you need to leave those downstairs lights on?

Eco-friendly speakers
These speakers from Fashionation are perfect for travelling executives who want to cheer themselves up with some music from their iPods when feeling a bit lost and lonely in a hotel room in some far flung town – c'mon, we've all been there. Not only are they made from entirely recycled materials, but they also fold flat, making them perfect for packing in a bag for a business trip.

Eco media player
Trevor Baylis bought us the wind-up radio, and then everyone else followed suit. Now, he has achieved another first with a wind-up media player. The Eco Media Player isn't exactly a state-of-the-art gadget in terms of its display or capacity – it has 2Gb of internal memory and a relatively tiny 1.8 inch screen. But what it lacks in screen size, it makes up for in environmental friendliness. It can be charged via a USB cable, but users can also use a hand winder to get 40 minutes of audio playback for just a minute of cranking. It handles video, photos and music, but it's also an FM radio, an audio recorder and a torch. Try doing that with your iPhone.

USBCell rechargeable batteries
Developed by battery technology firm Moixa Energy, these AA units recharge directly from a USB slot, avoiding the need for cables or bulky recharging packs. Most laptops these days come with at least two such slots, meaning that you can charge multiple batteries for remote controls, digital cameras or other devices. You'll need a powered USB port, and can expect to wait five hours for a full charge. but the batteries are certainly handy for the executive who wants to travel light.

Electronic book reader
Gutenburg couldn't have known how unpopular he would become among the world's trees. Instead of killing another one in pursuit of literary comfort, why not buy an electronic book reader instead? Amazon's Kindle has generated the most buzz recently, not least because of its wireless integration with the Amazon web site, enabling you to buy books instantly. The downside: it's only available to Americans, and it looks like something that Radio Shack would have sold in the early 80s. More stylish Europeans might want to consider the Bookeen Cybook instead. The French product consumes books in multiple open formats, and also supports the Mobipocket format (ironically, owned by Amazon). Like the Kindle, it uses electronic paper that only draws power when the screen image changes, preserving battery life.

Carbon offset credits
If there's one thing that executives like to do, it's travel. They often do it by plane, and often on short haul, which burns a lot of carbon. Buying a membership in a carbon offset plan such as terrapass.com or co2balance.com may not be to the tastes of all environmentalists but it can provide enough support for emission reduction projects around the world to offset the carbon emissions that they're causing. co2balance.com sells tiered membership plans starting at £50 that invest several tonnes of carbon dioxide offset in the project of your choice. Use a site like terrapass.com to calculate how much carbon your jetsetting colleague or loved one burned last year, and buy them enough offsets to cover it. Bingo – instant carbon neutrality and a clearer green conscience.

Bamboo Monitor
The manufacturer of this LCD monitor eschewed plastics in favour of hard bamboo – which is apparently Panda-friendly, as the bears only like the soft stuff. Don't place too much emphasis on biodegradability, however. Given that the electronics will still have to go through the recycing mill, and that the bamboo has been treated with an anti-rotting agent, this isn't a candidate for the compost pile. Buying this monitor means that you aren't consuming plastic, though – and it'll look nice on your desk, too. We were certainly pretty impressed when we took a look at it earlier this year, and if you like your IT furnishings to match, there is a bamboo optical mouse and keyboard, too.

Water-powered clock
It's a clock, an alarm and a thermometer, and it runs on water. Two specially doped electrodes sit in water and create a flow of electrons, creating power for the electronics in the device. Top it up with new water every three months or so and it will keep running. Any rumours of water-powered cars based on the same technology are probably wildly over-optimistic.

Recycled phone
And finally, for all those smug people who do all their Christmas shopping in the spring, here's one for next year. This month, Nokia announced the 3110 Evolve, a phone that is made of 60 per cent recycled materials. Half of the materials used in the device are also renewable, and the company says that it's the most energy-efficient phone yet, with a charger that operates at 94 per cent below the US Environmental Protection Agency's EnergyStar levels. Nokia has already introduced green innovations into its products in other ways, including shipping chargers that remind their owners to unplug them when the device they're charging is fully juiced. There are no pricing or availability details for the 3110 Evolve yet, so keep watching the stores early next year and perhaps you can avoid the last minute shopping rush next December.