Green Christmas Tips from the Earth Rewards Team

Read all the latest news and views from the Earth Rewards HQ

Green Christmas Tips from the Earth Rewards Team

Christmas – a time for family, friends, food and saving the planet… yes, we did say saving the planet!! With the EU parliament declaring a “climate and environmental emergency” just a few days ago, it’s never been more important for families and friends to make Christmas 2019 as planet-friendly as possible. So we though we would bring you some green Christmas tips.

Waste not, want not

According to the waste management company, Biffa, waste in the UK increases by 30% over the Christmas period from food to presents and even our Christmas trees, with the majority ending up in land-fill and some making its way to our oceans. This spike includes around 450,000 km of wrapping paper, 2 million turkeys and 74 million mince pies – shocking right?! The good news is that there are many steps we can take to reduce waste and actually spend this final month of the year reaching and even surpassing our green goals. 

How you can make a difference

The aim of Earth Rewards is to help you make the environment and your impacts part of your daily thought process. It doesn’t have to be the overriding influence in your decision-making. Being mindful of environmental impacts when going about your daily life, then the chances are you will make planet-saving choices along the way.

Alongside your existing green goals, it’s important at this festive time of year to keep the planet in mind when making your festive-related decisions, helping to keep your impact as low as possible.

Our Earth Rewards app includes a number of everyday lifehacks that will help you reach your day-to-day green goals. But for a bit of extra inspiration at this time of year, we have asked some of our Earth Rewards team for their green Christmas tips and how they’ll be reducing their impact this month:

Team tips and tricks for a Green Christmas

Tip 1

When it comes to presents, we will only be buying things for each other that we actually need, which is great. When it comes to wrapping the presents, we’ve also decided on a low impact approach. By reusing gift bags from last year, using paper and ribbons we have saved from other arts and crafts projects and previous gifts we will ensure that as much as possible, the materials we use have either been reused or recycled. 

Nikos – Software Developer

Tip 2

I’ve got a lot of kids in my family, and it’s been interesting to see how their understanding and feelings about the climate crisis and the environment has evolved, especially over the past few months. For them it’s pretty simple and common sense that we would all work together towards saving our planet and do what we can to reduce our impacts and achieve our green goals.

With all the kids around, our tree decorating day is almost as important as Christmas itself, but this year we are turning it into a craft day with everyone making handmade tree decorations instead of buying baubles, tinsel and new lights. It will be messy I’m sure, but way more fun and environmentally friendly than previous years.

Pavlos – CTO

Tip 3

We always buy a real tree. But for the first time, this year we have put some effort into finding a tree grown in the UK that is FSC certified to avoid unnecessary emissions from importing it. After Christmas, we will take it to our local council who has a program in place to turn old trees into woodchip which is great! In terms of decoration, we’ve got some very pretty LED fairy lights which use 95% less energy than traditional bulbs and last a lot longer. 

Pete – Loyalty Expert

Tip 4

This year will be my first completely vegetarian Christmas, and I have to admit, I’m slightly nervous! Thankfully I’m a decent cook and my family are finally on board, although they were slightly concerned when I proposed it- especially as they are Italian. I’m also trying to buy food that hasn’t travelled across half the planet to arrive. For the mains, I’m planning to do a beetroot & squash wellington with kale pestoroasted Brussel sprouts with pomegranates, along with roasted root veg and potatoes. Starters and dessert are still to be decided upon – so if you have great recipes, please share them!

Valerio – Software Developer

Tip 5

There will be 9 of us at my house for Christmas this year and we have decided to try and play Secret Santa. This should cut down on unnecessary waste, as each of us only gets one gift this year from our secret Santa. We have also used the premise that everything has to be environmentally friendly. This could mean a handmade gift, an experience or something pre-loved.

It can be a quite hard choosing presents for everyone, so hopefully this new approach will mean we all get really creative and end up with some fantastic, heartfelt gifts. After all, that’s what Christmas and the act of giving is really all about.

Zachi – Community Manager

What about you, our readers?

These are just a few ideas from our team, but we’d love to hear about the ways you are reducing your impact this Christmas! Share your tips, tricks and ideas with us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter

Give the Gift of Earth Rewards

Sharing is caring this season, so why not help your family and friends reach their green goals in 2020? Get them to download the Earth Rewards app (available on Google Play and App Store) and invite them to join our growing community of Eartherz!

Back to Blog

 

2 Responses

  1. […] P.S For more life hacks on reducing your impact this Christmas, check out our Green Christmas Tips.  […]

  2. […] Friday 13th and Christmas Jumper Day here in the UK. A fun and Christmassy way to raise money for children in need run by Save the Children. From pom-pom reindeer noses to […]

Comments are closed.