It takes a slightly bit more energy and time but it is worth it to give eco-friendly or social corporate gifts instead of the regular run-of-the-mill-drain-the-environment gifts that are the commercial gift fodder for umteen businesses.

When you’re honouring hardworking staff and esteemed clients with environmentally friendly or socially friendly corporate gifts, you’re also advertising a green life-style that shows your business cares about our earth and the less advantaged people so more will naturally treasure the gift.

Of course the best type of eco gift is one where you do not in fact give anything! There are umpteen such gift alternatives now available such as Buy1GIVE1, Kiva and Change The Present.

When you use eco-friendly corporate gifts it’s always important to know your recipient. You’ll want to choose a gift that represents the gratitude you feel. Whether its for saying thank you for remaining in the office late to meet tight deadlines or running that extra mile to close a sales deal, your team members committed their precious time to the better your company. So the extra effort needed to create a special eco-gift or social gift is fitting considering the reason why you want to give the gift in the first place.

Everyone loves diamonds and no one looks bad in diamonds, do they? It is not actually within the remit of this piece to suggest whether diamonds are a first-class investment or not, but their supposed worth is enormous. Instead, I want to discuss where the best place to procure a diamond is, because it is more importantant that you acquire your diamond from a respectable merchant with a guarantee than that you think you got a good deal on eBay by purchasing somebody’s grandmother’s engagement ring, which might not be genuine.

Consequently, before you commence browsing for diamonds, consider dealing with a bonded jeweller. Bonded jewellers sell bonded diamonds and there are not many bonded jewellers in the world. In fact, of the jewellers in the world, only about 5% of them are bonded.

Buying a bonded diamond will cost more than buying a non-bonded diamond, but when you consider what you get with the bonded alternative, you will see that it is well worth the additional expenditure.

First, bonded diamonds have a buy-back guarantee for the life of the diamond. No matter how long you keep the diamond, you can take it back to the bonded jeweller and sell it back to him or her, for a 100% refund.

With going “green” finally being recognized as vital, this book gives the matter serious attention. Contributors from Hollywood even share their best ideas. The authors, Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen, look at the way Americans produce waste, utilize water and consume energy and offer easy to implement changes.

Star contributors, such as Robert Redford, Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Aniston, Faith Hill and Dale Earnhardt Jr. share their helpful hints for being a good partner to our world. The authors discuss 12 areas, including our home, work, and school, and show ways to make better decisions in keeping them green. The book keys on how little changes can add up to huge savings on our environment by using descriptions versus analytical numbers.

A few simple suggestions in The Green Book are:

* Say No to ATM paper receipts. If we all in the U.S.A. wrote the amount in our checkbook instead of requesting a receipt, the paper saved would be more than 2 billion ft. long.

* Voicemail service instead of answering machine. Unplugging your answering machine could save nearly 2 billion kilowatt hours annually to the United States.