The Best Wooden Toys For Sustainable Kids

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Wooden toys may appear to be an eco-friendly choice but aren’t always. Just because a toy is made of wood doesn’t make it sustainable. Here’s what to look out for to help make more environmentally friendly choices, as well as my top five best wooden toy brands.

Look into any parent of a young child’s home (including ours) and you’ll most likely see a sea of plastic toys.

Plastic toys are cheap to make and buy and are convenient. However, we pay a heavy environmental price for this convenience and low financial cost. Being made from fossil fuels, plastic toys have a large carbon footprint.

What’s more, plastic is pretty pervasive, hanging around for hundreds of years. As plastic toys mostly can’t be recycled, unwanted toys that are binned can also contribute to the amount of plastic ending up in landfills and oceans. And if that’s not enough of a headache, plastic toys are full of toxins and often contain banned chemicals.

What About Wood?

Wooden kids’ toys can be a better environmental choice. Wooden toys are, if you choose correctly, sustainable, and free of the chemical risks that plastic toys possess. They can also be real hand-me-down pieces.

What to Look Out For When Buying Sustainable Wooden Toys

Flatlay of wooden toys with blue text box that says how to buy sustainable wooden toys

However, just because a toy is made from wood doesn’t necessarily make it sustainable. There are various environmental considerations to be made. These include how the wood has been grown and what paints have been used. Other key considerations include how the workers in all aspects of the supply chain are treated, as well as the company’s own sustainability ethos.

Here’s what to consider and look out for when buying sustainable wooden toys.

Secondhand Wooden Toys First

The most sustainable wooden toys are secondhand ones. Therefore these should always be the ones that you consider buying first. The good news is that buying secondhand is the most budget-friendly way of buying them.

It’s not difficult to source good quality secondhand wooden toys. Charity shops, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, and Oxfam Online are all great places to look. There are even wooden toy buy-and-sell groups on Facebook.

Look for Sustainable Certifications When Buying Wooden Toys

If you decide to buy new, then there are steps you can take to make sure the wooden toys you are buying are actually sustainable.

One of these steps is to look for external certification labels.

External certification means that the company’s toys and their business practices meet criteria that are assessed by an external non-profit organisation.

The Labels To Look For

Sustainable labels to look for when buying wooden toys include:

  • FSC Certified. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo on wooden toys is your assurance that it is made with, or contains, forest-based materials from FSC-certified forests or reclaimed sources. Look specifically for labelling that says FSC 100%.
  • BCorp Certified. This is where businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.
  • Fairtrade Certified. This shows that the product has been certified to offer a better deal to the farmers and workers involved. It does not endorse an entire company’s business practices.
  • Carbon Neutral Certified. This certifies that products that are either carbon neutral or the companies have purchased offsets to the value of their annual emissions.
  • Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). This label allows customers and consumers to identify products from sustainably managed forests.
  • EU Ecolabel. This is a label of environmental excellence that is awarded to products meeting high environmental standards throughout their life cycle. This covers the raw material extraction right through to its production, distribution, and disposal. 
  • Blue Angel Eco Label. This is an independent, German environmental label for products and services that have environmentally friendly aspects. Its goal is to inform consumers about environmentally friendly products.

It is extremely rare that wooden toy companies would hold all of these sustainable labels. Each certification is time-consuming to achieve and requires many systems to be in place. Each certification can also be expensive to achieve. Therefore, you just need to look for at least one eco-label when buying wooden toys.

Consider Where The Wood Comes From

As I mentioned, just because a product is made from wood doesn’t make it sustainable. Some wooden toys contribute to deforestation and illegal logging. This happens when companies use wood sourced from forests managed unsustainably. It’s especially problematic in environmentally sensitive areas such as the Amazon.

Toys made from unsustainably managed forests can result in biodiversity loss. It can also result in reduced ecosystem qualities and increased greenhouse gas emissions. The very things that you probably wanted to avoid by buying wooden toys.

Instead, when buying sustainable wooden toys, look for wood that is from sustainably managed forests. Rubberwood is a good choice when it comes to wooden kids’ toys. Rubberwood is a waste product from the latex industry, which used to be destroyed once the latex dried up. Alternatively, wood from European sources is often a more sustainable choice.

Five Best Sustainable Wooden Toys Brands to Look Out For

If you’re looking to buy a special toy for a child in your life then don’t feel overwhelmed. Here is a rundown of some of my favourite ethical and sustainable wooden toy brands available in the UK:

Grimm’s Toys

Grimm's sustainable kids play set

Grimm’s stunning, handcrafted Waldorf-inspired toys are fairly made in Europe. Not only are they EU-made, but the wood comes exclusively from sustainably managed forests in Europe. They are an FSC-certified company and are actively engaged in reforestation projects. What’s more, the stains they use are non-toxic and water-based.

Buy Grimms in the UK from Kidly.


Haba

Sustainable wooden toys from Haba

Haba makes high-quality long-lasting sustainable wooden toys, all with the PEFC seal. Their toys are made in Germany from beech and birch wood. This wood is sourced from sustainably managed German forests

The loss of one part of a game can sometimes mean that the whole game can no longer be used. However, a couple of years ago Haba set up a comprehensive replacement service to combat this problem. I love that they have put together a service like this, to help games from being binned.

Buy Haba toys in the UK via Haba’s Amazon store.


Indigo Jamm

Indigo Jamm ethical wooden kids toys

Indigo Jamm is a small company designing eco-friendly wooden toys in the UK. All of its factories have been visited and inspected by Indigo Jamm, to ensure their products are made in environmentally and socially responsible ways.

90% of their toys are made using rubberwood – a waste product from the latex industry. Indigo Jamm’s paints are also water-based for extra eco points.

You can buy their toys directly from Indigo Jamm’s Amazon store.


Lubolona

lubolona eco-friendly and ethical wooden kids toys

Lubolona designs and manufactures stylish kids’ toys using eco-friendly and high-quality materials. All its products are designed in Barcelona and are manufactured entirely in Europe, from natural high-quality beech wood.

Lubolona’s intention is to keep its environmental impact to a minimum, whilst focusing on fair and local production. What’s more, Lubolona uses environmentally friendly cardboard boxes and fabric bags for its packaging. You won’t find any plastic here!

Shop Lubolona in the UK via Trouva, starting from £35.99.


Plan Toys

plan toys ethical sustainable wooden toys

Plan Toys makes ethical wooden toys for kids and babies, that are designed to be fun, engaging, and educational. You’ll find cool and unique sets, like this English breakfast wooden toy set. However, if it’s traditional you’re after then Plan Toys also has you covered. My kids have especially loved the Plan Toy toy town sets – with the fun road and rail networks to build.

Plan Toys’ entire range is Fairtrade certified. All toys are also made in Thailand from sustainably sourced wood and painted with non-toxic dyes.

As well as solid wood toys, Plan Toys also makes toys from PlanWood. This is a byproduct of sawdust that its factory produces. This ensures that nothing goes to waste. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, then Plan Toys has also developed its very own certified non-formaldehyde glue.

We’ve bought secondhand Plan Toys in the past and can testify that its toys are high quality and built to last.

Buy Plan Toys in the UK from Amazon.


If you’re looking to buy a wooden toy as a gift, then do check out my ethical and eco-friendly gift ideas post for more inspiration.

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