Gifts that keep giving: consumers drive socially responsible trend.

• Author: Little, Candace M.
• Position: Business Trends

The holiday season is upon us and consumers all over the world are preparing to seize opportunities like Black Friday sales and Christmas specials, because if consumerism has taught us anything, it's that it can't be the happiest season of all without giving and receiving presents. This year, though, the gift-giving trend is to find something that means more than a good deal or a fun toy--consumers want gifts that keep on giving.

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In September, TIME editor Richard Stengel wrote, "We are again entering a period of social change as Americans are recalibrating our sense of what it means to be a citizen, not just through voting or volunteering but also through commerce: by what we buy." Stengel also shared statistics from a national TIME survey which reported that of 1,003 adults polled, nearly 40 percent said they purchased a product in 2009 because they liked the social or political values of the company that produced it. The survey also showed an increase in shoppers buying local and organic goods.

As sustainable, green and fair trade gift giving becomes more popular, there are a number of Utah businesses facilitating the trend. Worldstock.com, Ten Thousand Villages and A Gift to Africa are three Utah-based companies that sell socially responsible gifts, with a goal of creating jobs for artisans in third world countries or others in hard circumstances. Sustainable gifts offered by those companies--like paper bead jewelry, push toys made from recycled wire and shade-grown coffee--are also unique because they are connected to an individual artisan. And each time the handiwork is purchased, it is not only a gift under the tree, but also a gift to the artisan's families and their countries.

Worldstock.com

Worldstock's goal, "to create tens of thousands (and someday millions) of jobs in the poorest regions of the world" rings true to Angela Ramirez, director of Worldstock, who grew up in Columbia. "There is nothing better than to give people less fortunate an opportunity to succeed and sustain themselves with their beautiful creations."

Ramirez has noticed an increase in sustainable and green gifts purchased, resulting in more than $30 million, so far, sent to Worldstock...