Top 10 Christmas gifts for green business execs

For years, green and ethical gifts have amounted to little more than horribly scratchy hemp jumpers and useless little gadgets that don't really work. But just as the green business movement is maturing rapidly so are the gifts you can buy for the environmentally conscious business folk in your life.

BusinessGreen.com offers its annual take on the top ten green business gifts this Christmas.

Efficient mobile power

It's common knowledge that mobile phone chargers suck electricity from a mains socket, even without a phone plugged in. The quantity of energy wasted is tiny on an individual basis - less than 0.5 watts - but multiply it by the estimated 73 million phones in the UK and that's a lot of unnecessary carbon. O2's Universal Charger aims to rectify matters by drawing just 0.144 watts, 70 per cent less than a typical charger meeting Energy Star standards. While not quite as impressive as the Nokia 3110 Evolve charger's 94 per cent saving and just four out of five on Nokia's charger chart, O2's gadget does work with Sony Ericsson and Samsung phones as well as Nokia models. Blackberry and iPhone adapters are due early 2009.
£15

Solar laptops

Finally, a portable solar charger that will actually power a laptop. The perfect gift for execs who are always on the hoof, the Powergorilla and Solargorilla (pictured) are a solar panel and battery duo that make the Solio and Voltaic's solar bags look like toys. The pair are equipped with over 20 adapters so you can connect virtually any laptop brand and anything from an iPhone to a PSP. We found the Powergorilla extended an old Sony X505's battery life for around four hours, though it varies from model to model. Rugged build quality means both gizmos should survive the luggage system at Terminal 5.
£290 total

Remote-controlled eco home

Energy monitors such as the Efergy Meter are great at telling you how much energy you're wasting, but won't change your habits for you. AlertMe's new eco kit, on the other hand, will let you use your phone and any web browser to view how much energy your appliances are guzzling - and then remotely switch them off. Which is neat. While the Smart Plugs that enable this wizardry don't go on sale until January, the Starter Kit - a DIY web-connected security system - is available now as Christmas gift fodder.
Starter Kit, £150
Smart Plugs, £25 each

Carbon neutral suit

Here's a green business gift that doesn't require a plug and has a shelf-life beyond the festive season. Tailor Charcoal & Chalk has produced a dapper Beyond Carbon Neutral Suit that's been carbon offset 300 per cent to cover the emissions from its manufacture and transport. Two thirds of the offsets are from Woodland Trust tree-planting - a controversial mode of offsetting in some quarters - and the final third is through Carbon Neutral Company projects in renewable energy and methane capture. The wool suits are available in 13 different designs, each with a limited run of 40.
£495

Cranky MP3 player

Experiencing deja vu? No, you're not living in The Matrix, we did feature the first generation of Trevor Baylis' Eco Media Player in our 2007 Christmas gift guide. Like the original, the new Revolution - it's more an Evolution if we're being honest - is packed with features including music, video and photo playback, plus FM radio recording, a line-in socket for recording external sources and the ability to charge your phone. The big upgrade is the design, from a new piano black finish to the brushed silver crank handle. Storage capacity, battery life from cranking and the user interface have all been improved too.
£130

A greener Apple

Help your eco exec stand out from the ThinkPad-packing crowd with one of Apple's latest MacBooks. Even Greenpeace thinks the new laptops are relatively green, describing them as "a major step forward". The machines earn their stars due to a phase-out of potentially toxic chemicals including brominated flame retardants and PVC, while the screen's also mercury- and arsenic-free. The MacBook is a handsome piece of kit, and the aluminium case is almost worth the asking price alone.
£930+

Recycled data

Tiny portable USB keys are nearing parity with keys, wallet and phone as pocket essentials, so why not make yours a green one? This Earthdrive by ATP claims to be one of the planet's greenest by virtue of being made from bioplastic - plastic grown from plants - and being recyclable. While the environmental benefits of bioplastic are not clear-cut and there is no UK takeback scheme, the Earthdrive does look like a more sustainable effort than most USB keys. A percentage of sales is donated to the charity American Forests and it is sold packaged in card rather than an evil plastic blister pack. Capacities range from 1 to 8GB.
£14 for 8GB

Wind-up shaving

If you haven't shaved in an airport toilet, you haven't lived. When you're running from late-night networking session to early morning Powerpoint presentation, an electric shaver is a godsend - provided it hasn't run flat. That's where the Piranha Shaver comes in. It's an electric shaver that you charge off the mains but can also, in times of need, power by cranking its built-in handle. One minute of winding nets you just over a minute of shaving time from its rechargeable battery, though when fully charged it'll last an hour. Beats arriving at a meeting riddled with Bic-cuts.
£25

Longlife car chats

Hands-free car kits are great but, like sat-navs, a pain to continually remove for recharging. This LG HFB-500 Bluetooth solar car kit takes the hassle out of the process by proving a tiny solar panel that can help top up the battery when it is exposed to sunlight. You simply sucker-mount the phone-sized widget onto your wind screen, and then forget about it. When testing the LG earlier this summer, we didn't need to recharge it once over several weeks of driving and chatting. Perfect gift material for the road warriors in your life.
£49

Fairtrade webcam

Offices are already adopting Fairtrade coffee and snacks, so Fairtrade PC peripherals shouldn't stretch the imagination too much. While not certified by the UK's official Fairtrade Foundation, this 'Lili' webcam by United Pepper is made in a fair trade factory used by respected fair trade firm Traidcraft. No sweatshops here, we're promised. It also has some eco creds, from the recycled plastic packaging to the cotton, sand and kapok (tropical tree) body, which United Pepper claims has a lower ecological footprint than plastic (though there's no research to back that up). It's available in fetching green, blue and red, plus it's Windows- and Mac-compatible.
£24