Have Yourself a Merry Little (Sustainable) Christmas

Christmas is one of the biggest world celebrations, whether people acknowledge it as a festival of their faith, or as a secular holiday season.  It comes with a set of standard commonalities that can be applied to most other festivals in that it typically involves family and friends coming together to mark the occasion; food is prepared in recognition of the event (and lots of it for all the visiting family and friends); and people purchase and exchange tokens and gifts in keeping with the typical gestures, symbols or traditions of the season.

DCSPX Sustainable Christmas

As a result – and in line with other major world festivals – Christmas has a huge, unintended impact on the planet due to mass over-consumption.  Our advances of good will to all men spells out bad tidings to mankind in the long run.  We have never been so well-informed about climate change and the impact of our consumer behaviours, so why do we continue to engage in an almost sabotaging routine every year?  Should we cancel Christmas altogether?  One thing that we have learned in recent times is that polarised debate which deals in extremes can be unhelpful if we are to find true and workable solutions.  The reality is that this is not a simple matter of rejecting celebration and going about our daily business.  This really is about searching for the sweet spot between saving humanity (our future as a species on this planet) and saving what makes us truly human – connection, relationships, identity, kindness and spirituality.

DCSPX Sustainable Christmas

At the beginning of this academic year, Dulwich College Shanghai Puxi launched a set of competencies which we feel best define a global citizen.  We also feel that if your children are to develop these competencies, then these patterns of behaviour need to be exhibited regularly amongst our community members.  When I was a young teacher, I remember reading a study which talked about the importance of families and schools working in partnership. In this partnership, the research demonstrated that families had around 70% of the impact on children, whereas schools had about 30% of the impact. While I’m not sure of the long-term validity of the study, it certainly poses questions for schools when trying to shape certain characteristics, or a particular stance from their students.  And so – our 5 Global Citizenship Competencies are community competencies, and in this way, home and school must work together to reinforce the same messages.

DCSPX Sustainable Christmas

Back to that sweet spot, and how to have a more sustainable Christmas. Here are some things for you to think about as a family.

 

1
Make a list, and check it twice

The OECD published an article in 2019 ‘What is the environmental footprint of Christmas?’ (Cox, Anthony, Deputy Director OECD Environment Directorate) which provided some statistics on the amount of food wasted over the Christmas period – around 54 million platefuls in the UK alone.  This contribution to the almost 80 million tonnes of food wasted every year accounts for around 1/10th of greenhouse gas emissions.  We are being generous to a fault.  The good news is that this is a very simple issue to address through forward planning, and good organisation.  By working out the number of meals you need to make, and planning out portions, you can avoid buying (and wasting) food that you don’t need.  It also has the added bonus of saving you money.  If you don’t need extra money, feel free to give that away.  It will be of more use to the planet by supporting charities than your left-over mashed potatoes and carrots.

DCSPX Sustainable Christmas

2
Be nice, not naughty

Something that we all are definitely aware of, and it holds a special place on the naughty list, is single-use plastics. Unfortunately, Christmas is a tinsel-clad, man-made homage to the polymer pest. Bryony Walker and Alice Hunter published an article on their website in 2019 titled ‘9 Ways to Reduce Your Plastic This Christmas’ which reminds us that all of that tinsel and glitter usually ends up in landfill, the ocean, and the food chain. According to Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor in the Independent, in 2006 in the UK alone, more than a billion Christmas cards were delivered – enough to stretch around the world five times.  52 square miles – enough to wrap up the district of Minhang, were ripped off presents by Boxing Day.  125,000 tons of plastic packaging (equivalent to around a million Santas) was thrown into landfills.

But – it’s all so beautiful!  It is still possible to have nicely decorated homes and presents without using a material that will still be around in 100 Christmases to come.  This week, our children in the Primary School have been participating in an environmental impact day to make more natural and sustainable Christmas decorations, from tree ornaments to wrapping paper.  They have risen to the challenge of avoiding foils, plastics or any other materials which won’t decompose naturally, and have really enjoyed the creative process and problem solving.

DCSPX Sustainable Christmas

 

3
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

Last year in the UK, as many as 6 million Christmas trees were disposed of – enough to stretch to the North Pole and back.  But, which is better for the planet – a plastic tree which can come out year after year like an old family heirloom, or a natural tree which needs to go to landfill on January 5th?  The OECD cites:

‘The Carbon Trust reports that a 2m tree that is felled from a forest that ends up as wood chips or on a bonfire after Christmas has a carbon footprint of 3.5kg of CO2e. If that tree is sent to landfill, then the carbon footprint increases to 16kg of CO2e. In contrast, the same size artificial tree (usually PVC and metal) has an estimated carbon footprint of 40kg of CO2e. So an artificial tree must be used for 12 years to make it greener than a natural tree that is chipped or burnt.’

DCSPX Sustainable Christmas

 

4
Tis The Season To Be Jolly

Over the years, people have experienced more and more pressure to give ever-increasingly expensive gifts.  Millions of families around the world enter into debt at this time of year with an almost willful blindness.  It’s not hard to see why, as hyper consumption is presented to us through relentless advertising, and marketing events such as Black Friday have normalised overspending in the approach to the holidays. 

By making a conscious effort to lean more towards to spirit of the season – goodwill, festive cheer, seeing loved ones – communities have the power to press ctrl-alt+delete on the culture of consumerism.  This year, try giving the gift of time over materialism by visiting friends or family that you have not seen for a while.  A simpler approach is not a poorer one when it is rich in the things that really matter – our humanity.

DCSPX Sustainable Christmas

Wishing you all the warmest greetings of the season.

 

References

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/9-ways-reduce-plastic-use/ 
https://oecd-environment-focus.blog/2019/12/24/what-is-the-environmental-footprint-of-christmas/