Blog

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_header-1

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Header (1)

Ecologi’s Eco Gift Guide - best ethical gift ideas from our community 

The best ethical gift ideas from our community 

Giving always feels good. Particularly at this time of year. And giving a carefully chosen gift from an ethical company making a positive impact on the world feels even better. No-one wants to give with one hand and take from our planet with the other, so why not dial that warm giving glow to the max by choosing something from Ecologi’s Eco Gift Guide? 
We have some really great ethical businesses offering amazing gifts right here in our Ecologi community, so we’re lucky enough to come across lots of hidden gems and rare treasures.  Here’s some of our top picks. Whether you&#8217;re looking for a secret santa pressie for colleagues or a festive thank you to your faves, we’ve got a suggestion for everyone, and an idea for all budgets…

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_01

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_01

<h3>Pre-loved gadgets </h3>
E-waste is one of the fastest growing problem areas for our planet, and a typical new phone creates at least 79kg of CO2 emissions. So why not keep tech out of landfill by giving pre-loved gadgets a new home? You can get some great refurbished smartphones and tablets at <a href="https://reboxed.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reboxed. </a>

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_02

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_02

<h3>Bathroom beauties </h3>
<a href="https://ethique.co.uk/collections/gift-packs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ethique</a> makes incredible cosmetic products such as shampoos and soap bars that are 100% free from plastic and palm oil, while also being carbon-neutral and vegan. Oh, and they smell amazing too!

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_03

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_03

<h3>Sustainability with style</h3>
Up your accessories game with a range of stunning dungarees, hats, tees, bags and more from <a href="https://lucyandyak.com/collections/gifting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lucy &amp; Yak</a>. Everyone who’s had a hand in making these beautiful, high-quality garments is treated and paid fairly, and all of their organic cotton is <a href="https://global-standard.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GOTS certified. </a>

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_04

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_04

<h3>Ecologi tree gifting </h3>
Why not give friends and colleagues <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/gifting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the gift of trees</a> this season? Our trees are planted all around the world in the places they’re needed most, and they do a world of good for local biodiversity and communities. Your recipient will also get their own virtual forest to watch grow. It’s a gift that will keep on giving, long into the future.

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_05

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_05

<h3>Cosy candles </h3>
There’s no better way to cosy up a home than candlelight. <a href="https://good-candles.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Good Candles</a> are hand poured with responsibly sourced soy wax and 10% of all sales is donated to good causes, including planting trees with Ecologi!

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_06

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_06

<h3>One-of-a-kind artworks </h3>
Bring a splash of inspiration into any home or office, with <a href="https://www.artfinder.com/#/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">authentic artwork</a> made by independent artists. Artfinder is on a mission to make art sustainable, accessible and affordable, while supporting artists to make a living doing what they love.

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_07

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_07

<h3>Year-round bake offs </h3>
Treat any keen baker to a <a href="https://bakedin.co.uk/pages/gift-a-subscription" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Baked In</a> subscription and they’ll love receiving a unique baking kit each month. You’ll be supporting a great company that exists to tackle food waste, while making their packaging as sustainable as possible and supporting local charities too.

blog_christmas_22_ecogiftguide_banner_08

Blog_Christmas_22_EcoGiftGuide_Banner_08

<h3>Greener gin</h3>
Know someone who likes a tipple? <a href="https://www.greenallsgin.com/greenergreenalls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Greenall’s Gin</a> now produces a miraculous paper bottle (who knew?) reducing weight, carbon footprint and water usage. And if that’s not impressive enough they also plant a tree with Ecologi for every bottle sold!

One final thought, if you want to send a thank you card to colleagues and clients this year you can save unnecessary paper waste and give the postie a break by choosing a beautiful <a href="https://shop.wwf.org.uk/collections/ecards" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WWF e-card</a>, featuring stunning photography of wildlife and nature.
We hope you’ve found something that fits the festive bill from this amazing community of ethical companies. Happy holidays and happy gifting!

The Greenprint Bulletin: Your latest climate bulletin

blog_thegreenprint_header_june_01

Blog_TheGreenPrint_Header_June_01

The Greenprint Bulletin

Stay up-to-date with the biggest sustainability stories shaping the business landscape. Each edition highlights critical shifts in climate news, policy and finance, providing clear analysis of emerging risks and opportunities for sustainability professionals.

The Greenprint timeline

Connect with one of our climate experts

blog_goodnews_header-2

Blog_GoodNews_Header

The Good News timeline

It’s not all bad. While there’s a lot of negative news about the climate, let’s not forget the good stuff. Find climate wins, reasons to be hopeful and plenty of positivity in our good news timeline.

The good news timeline

Ready to make a difference for our planet? Get in touch, and let’s chat about how we can help you on your climate journey. 

blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_01blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_header

Blog_Carbon credits_Whitepaper_01Blog_Carbon credits_Whitepaper_Header

UK Voluntary Carbon Market Guide: Best Practices for Climate Action

The voluntary carbon market plays an important role in corporate climate strategies – but its effectiveness relies on buyers doing due diligence and rigorous quality assessment on each project, as well as placing the purchase of credits in the right place in the climate journey.
To ensure meaningful climate impact, businesses must develop a comprehensive carbon strategy and find ways to fund only high-quality credits in the voluntary carbon market – and this guide shows you how to do so with Ecologi.

<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<ul>
<li>When to buy carbon credits</li>
<li>Our new carbon projects assessment framework</li>
<li>Ecologi&#8217;s core due diligence principles</li>
<li>How Ecologi scores and ranks carbon credit projects</li>
<li>Questions to ask your carbon credit supplier</li>
<li>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</li>
</ul>

blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_01blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_banner_01

Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_01Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_Banner_01

<h2>When should businesses buy carbon credits in the voluntary market?</h2>
Businesses must not use credits in place of making direct, measurable reductions in their emissions. Instead, follow these steps to ensure you buy your carbon credits on the right step of your corporate climate action journey, and in the right way:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Measure your emissions first – to allow you to understand where your business’s emissions are coming from. 
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set science-based targets and work towards them – set ambitious targets aligned with the SBTi and compatible with the global 1.5ºC warming target.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) – design your BVCM portfolio to work alongside your decarbonisation plan and address your unabated emissions in each reporting year. Align it with SBTi guidance and the Oxford Principles. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Buy high-quality carbon credits – use this guide to ensure the carbon credits you buy meet rigorous quality standards. Remember, under the SBTi framework you’ll also need permanent carbon removal credits for neutralising your residual emissions when you reach your net-zero date.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Disclose and report transparently – publicly disclose information about your carbon credit purchases, and clearly communicate the limited role of carbon credits in your broader sustainability strategy.</li>
</ol>

blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_01blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_banner_02

Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_01Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_Banner_02

<h2>Ecologi&#8217;s carbon project assessment framework</h2>
In April 2025, we published a report summarising how we assess carbon credit projects against our rigorous proprietary rubric. A snapshot of what goes into our carbon credit project assessment is below, or you <a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">download the full whitepaper here</a>.

<h2>Carbon project due diligence: Ecologi’s core principles</h2>
At Ecologi, we maintain general due diligence principles which we apply universally across the voluntary carbon market, to support our efforts to supply only high-quality carbon credits.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">ICROA-endorsed standards only – we supply credits exclusively from carbon standards which are ICROA-endorsed.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Responsive to ICVCM decisions – we support the ICVCM’s two-tick approach to providing CCP-Approval to project methodologies, and we go further still, to assess individual projects on their merits and limitations as well.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Keep the carbon credit life cycle as short as possible – 75% of our credits in 2024 came directly from project developers and their nominated dispensaries (as opposed to intermediaries on the secondary market), maximising the proportion of purchase price which goes to the developer.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Locally-appropriate projects only – we take care to ensure that supported projects are being applied in appropriate geographies, where they can have the greatest impact.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Deep project-level scrutiny – our extensive assessment criteria are specific to each type of project, and we assess every project against these criteria, ensuring the project’s specifics have been taken into account.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Methodological consensus – we synthesise data we receive from our partners Sylvera, BeZero Carbon, Calyx Global and Renoster) with our own in-house analysis to uncover where there is consensus about project quality, and improve confidence.</li>
</ul>

blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_01blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_banner_03

Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_01Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_Banner_03

<h2>How to evaluate carbon credits: Ecologi&#8217;s scoring methodology</h2>
We designed a three-layer assessment process which takes into account the merits and limitations of the carbon standard used, the carbon credit methodology used, and of the individual project design.
The tables below summarise some of the data inputs we use at each stage.

<h3>Assessment level: Carbon Standard</h3>
Examples: Gold Standard, Verra, Puro Earth, Isometric, Plan Vivo.

<h3>Assessment level: Methodology (or ‘Protocol’)</h3>
Examples: GS TPDDTEC, VM0048, ACM0002.

<h3>Assessment level: Project</h3>
Examples: GS 10790, VCS 1571.

Criteria in the assessment are categorised as either quality criteria or risk criteria, and are segmented by our three pillars of impact: Climate, Nature and People. Based on how it meets each criterion, the project gains points for quality criteria, and loses points for excess risk – ultimately giving a risk-adjusted value out of 100 for each of these pillars.
Having gathered our risk-adjusted pillar scores, we use our own unique scoring formula which weights the risk-adjusted Climate score of the project equally with the combined risk-adjusted Nature and People scores. The formula then produces an ‘overall’ score (also out of 100) for the project. In order to be supplied by Ecologi, projects must meet a minimum overall score of 80, and must achieve no lower than 65 in any given risk-adjusted pillar score.

blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_01blog_carbon-credits_whitepaper_banner_04

Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_01Blog_Carbon-credits_Whitepaper_Banner_04

<h2>Key questions to ask carbon credit suppliers</h2>
Selecting the right carbon credit provider is important to help guide you to make informed choices as part of your corporate sustainability strategy. Before purchasing carbon credits, businesses should ask:
<h3>Project quality </h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you assess/validate/underwrite project quality? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do your projects get good ratings from the ratings agencies? If so, what ratings are they?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you source credits directly from project developers, or from the secondary market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you monitor projects over time to ensure continued success, and how do you remedy it, if a project&#8217;s quality drops?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Due diligence</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you ensure you are supporting the right projects in the right locations?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you account for project permanence and mitigate risks?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What makes your projects additional?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you assess the project&#8217;s impacts on climate, nature and people?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Positioning</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you contribute to the development of a high integrity voluntary carbon market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you align your portfolios with the Oxford Principles? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you reflect ICVCM guidance on carbon credit methodologies and technologies?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you build multi-year portfolios that align to mid- &amp; long-term SBTs?</li>
</ul>
As the voluntary carbon market evolves, corporate buyers have the power and the responsibility to demand high-impact credits to drive real climate progress. This means buyers have a responsibility to do due diligence before placing an order for carbon credits.

<h2>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</h2>
As a business committed to corporate climate action, understanding the voluntary carbon market is essential for making informed decisions about carbon credits. Our comprehensive whitepaper provides deeper insights into creating an effective sustainability strategy.
<a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download our full whitepaper</a> to learn how your business can navigate the voluntary carbon market with confidence.

<h2>Connect with one of our climate experts</h2>
Please complete our form to arrange a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your goals and get a tailored solution for your business.

Ecologi’s Eco Gift Guide

The best ethical gift ideas from our community

More posts

The Greenprint Bulletin

The Good News timeline

UK Voluntary Carbon Market Guide: Best Practices for Corporate Climate Action

Follow us

Members

Resources

© 2025 Ecologi

Stay in touch with Ecologi