Only a handful of shopping days to go before the Christmas specials hit the tele and the whole country curls up for some well earned R&R. (In my case, it’ll also feature at least one trip to the local pub followed by a Chicken Jalfrezi).

Now, I love this time of year – I really do, but finding the special little gift that doesn’t leave my bank balance or the planet feeling less than healthy can be a challenge. So, that’s why I get enthused when I find out about stores such as EcoCentric – an online ethical & eco friendly homewares and gifts store. It wasn’t that long ago that you’d have to trawl the interweb in search of something more inspiring than hemp underpants and granola health bars. However, the world finally seems to be embracing the new eco era and that gives us choices… and choice is good.

EcoCentric are a UK based company who sell beautiful low energy, sustainable, ethical and recycled products, and which makes that gift or impulse buy not so bad for the environment.

Now they have all the staples such as homewares and cosmetics, etc, but they also have great gift ideas too.

I like the Play Rethink eco-game which promotes creativity, idea generation and lateral thinking. Players are asked to rethink existing, everyday products through the lens of environmentally friendly design! How cool is that??

Then there’s eco-plunk – it’s a variant of Kerplunk (one of my favourite’s as a kid) but it uses a twisted bamboo structure of plastic components.

But I must say that my favourite has to be the Grow Your Own Wine-Rack. This kit is part of a collection developed at Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, which involves “the growing of functional wooden domestic products out of willow”.

So, this is what you do… you make the wine rack by tethering together 22 lengths of willow (err… sounds easy enough). It takes two to three years before the growing willow grafts together and it can be harvested and brought indoors at which point it will be able to hold up to 10 bottles. It’s an excellent way to encourage local biodiversity and the willow will look good all year round, having catkins in the spring, abundant greenery in the summer and colourful bark in the winter.

So, if you’re at a loss as to what to buy the person who has everything – why not go for something that won’t cost the Earth?