If you want this year to be THE year you finally make your Christmas more sustainable, here are some tips that can help you celebrate this season without harming the planet. You'll see how easy they are.
1. Natural tree, yes, but with a head
Christmas trees are truly magical, we can all agree on that. Put one up and your home transforms from a regular home into a cozy, totally Christmassy home.
While the most sustainable option is to buy a fresh tree, it comes with its nuances. According to a Carbon Trust report, a natural tree has a carbon footprint of 3.5 kg of CO2, but be careful: only if it's reused. If we throw away the tree every year and it ends up in a landfill, it will be leaving a footprint of 16 kg each year.
If you have an artificial tree at home: don't throw it away! An artificial tree leaves a carbon footprint of up to 40 kg of CO2 if you buy one every year, but if you have one: use it. After 12 years, that tree will be even more sustainable than buying a real one.
Buying a fresh tree is very nice, but disposing of it properly is a pain, let's not kid ourselves. If you have a decent compost heap at home, get rid of it yourself. If, on the other hand, you live in a smaller space and can't afford it, there are many options available to you. We love the work done by Mi Árbol de Navidad . This company works with natural trees grown in the Spanish mountains, and they take care of delivering the tree to your home when needed and recovering it for later replanting or recycling.
2. Make sure your gifts have the least impact possible
Whether it's because they're vegan, sustainable, made with recycled materials, or have campaigns that help minimize the impact on our planet, the important thing is to try to find companies that do their part, in whatever way they can.
Giving shoes as a gift might initially put you off for fear that they won't fit well or that people won't like them, but what if we told you that you can return or exchange them without any problem?
If you'd like to contribute to more sustainable fashion and the well-being of our planet with your Christmas gift, go ahead and buy that special someone some Momocs .
3. Support local businesses
We know it's not easy, but try to forget about Amazon and services that promise to deliver your items to your home in less than 24 hours. We shudder just thinking about the environmental impact of delivering that quantity of products, the plastic packaging used and thrown away immediately after receiving it, the products produced that end up in landfills because no one ordered them, and a whole other list of things we won't go into, but about which millions of articles have been written.
The idea of supporting local businesses also goes hand in hand with buying less. This way, we buy things we truly want, help suppliers and manufacturers, and minimize our carbon footprint.
4. Go green when decorating (and packaging)
As you may have noticed, sustainability can be as simple as reusing. There's no need to buy new decorations every year. Keep in mind that lights and decorations are there to serve a very simple purpose: to add a Christmas touch to your home. It's not about having a different theme every year. The theme is Christmas.
Another thing you can do, and something that can be a fun family activity, is to decorate your house with handmade ornaments. Nature provides us with a wide variety of sustainable decorations, such as pine cones, branches, chestnuts, or tree bark, which can be painted and look really cool.
When wrapping your gifts, it's important to remember that everything we use is going to the trash: paper, glitter, plastic-wrapped ribbons... and all of that is unnecessary waste, much of it difficult to recycle and containing microplastics.
As an alternative we can use papers from other years, newspaper, cardboard, textiles ( furoshiki in Japan), vintage strings or ribbons.
5. It illuminates poorly but well
Yes, the most sustainable option is not to light up, but it's true that during this time of year we like to have a few extra lights in our homes. Since we don't want to break the bank either, we recommend opting for LED bulbs (these should always be installed in your home, but during this time of year you can try battery-operated ones) and candles. Yes, candles! Not only will they add a super cozy touch to your home, but they won't cost you anything to keep lit.
