In 2023, Cherwell Collective published a four-part series exploring the Carbon Cost of Christmas. It was a closer look at how some of the UK’s most cherished festive traditions contribute to climate change, and how small, thoughtful choices can significantly reduce that impact.  You can still revisit that four-part series here:

What we covered in those previous posts is as relevant as ever in 2025 and beyond. An analysis conducted for The Guardian last Christmas suggests the average Briton causes around 23 times more CO₂ on Christmas Day than on a typical day due to increased consumption across gifts, food, travel, and energy use. 

As we head into Christmas 2025, it feels like the right moment to revisit and synthesise the ideas covered in those 2023 posts into a single reflection. This is not to dampen the magic of the season, but to show that celebration and sustainability are not at odds. In fact, they often go hand in hand.

At the heart of the series was a simple but powerful idea: Carbon Cost.

Understanding Carbon Cost

Carbon Cost refers to the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with an activity or product across its lifecycle, from raw materials and manufacturing, through transport and use, to disposal. Measured in CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e), it gives us a way to compare the climate impact of everyday decisions that might otherwise feel abstract.

Christmas, with its lights, travel, shopping, and feasting, naturally amplifies many of these impacts. But once we understand where emissions tend to concentrate, we gain the ability to make better choices without sacrificing joy.

Festive Lights and Decorations: Bright Ideas That Cost Less

Few things signal Christmas quite like twinkling lights. Historically, however, festive lighting came with a hidden environmental price tag. Older incandescent bulbs were energy-hungry, inefficient, and short-lived.

The good news is that this is one area where progress has been rapid. LED lights now use up to 90% less energy, last significantly longer, and dramatically reduce emissions over the season. For many households, simply switching to LEDs cuts the Carbon Cost of festive lighting to a fraction of what it once was.

Pairing LED lights with timers or limited hours of use further reduces impact, proving that Christmas cheer doesn’t need to stay on all night to shine.

Another practice that can help make Christmas more sustainable: Consider keeping your decorations longer rather than mimicking households that routinely purchase new ones.  A recent study estimated that UK households throw away about 168 million light-up Christmas decorations and ‘fast tech’ items annually and spend another spend £1.7bn each season buying new ones. This highlights the problem of disposable festive electronics. 

Gifting: From Volume to Value

Gift-giving is central to Christmas culture, but it is also one of the most carbon-intensive parts of the season. In particular, fashion and consumer goods carry large footprints due to resource extraction, manufacturing, shipping, and short product lifespans.

Our 2023 Christmas series challenged the assumption that “new” automatically means “better”. Instead, it encouraged a shift towards intentional gifting:

  • Buying fewer items, but choosing ones that last
  • Prioritising second-hand, vintage, or repaired goods
  • Supporting brands that use lower-impact materials and ethical production
  • Gifting experiences (e.g., meals, classes, events, or services) rather than objects

Many of these practices are central to the concept of participating in a Circular Economy.

These choices not only reduce Carbon Cost but often result in more meaningful, personal gifts. In many cases, they also help keep money circulating within local economies.

Consider the potential impact on packaging alone. UK households discard enough card packaging each Christmas to cover Big Ben nearly 260,000 times, and over 400,000 tonnes of card packaging are not recycled each year, according to a government publication.

Christmas Travel: Balancing Connection and Emissions

For many people, Christmas involves travel – sometimes short journeys, sometimes long ones. Transport remains one of the most significant sources of individual carbon emissions, particularly flying and solo car travel.

Where alternatives exist, choosing trains or coaches can drastically reduce emissions. Car sharing, combining trips, or opting for electric vehicles where available also make a measurable difference.

Of course, not every journey can be avoided or optimised. The series acknowledged this reality, encouraging people to think holistically: If travel emissions are unavoidable, they can be balanced by lowering Carbon Cost elsewhere (e.g, through gifting, food choices, or energy use at home).

The goal isn’t perfection, but awareness and balance.

Christmas Food: Abundance Without Waste

Food lies at the heart of Christmas. However, so does food waste. In the UK, households throw away significantly more food during the festive period than at any other time of year. When food is wasted, all the emissions associated with growing, transporting, storing, and cooking it are wasted too.  Food waste accounts for 8% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.

Around 230,000 tonnes of food are thrown away in the UK each Christmas. That’s equivalent to 42 million plates of wasted meals, according to HIPPO Waste.  Meanwhile, Waste Mission finds that each year millions of typical Christmas foods end up in the bin, such as:

  • 263,000 turkeys
  • 7.5 million mince pies
  • 5 million Christmas puddings

These figures help illustrate the scale of holiday food waste and its climate impact. 

Simple planning can make a big difference.

  • Planning menus and portions realistically
  • Shopping with a list
  • Not overbuying meats and cheeses – foot items with among the highest Carbon Costs.
  • Freezing leftovers promptly
  • Getting creative with post-Christmas meals

Reducing food waste is one of the most immediate and cost-effective ways to lower the Carbon Cost of Christmas, while also saving money and respecting the resources behind every ingredient.

A More Thoughtful Christmas

The UK produces about 30% more waste in December than at other times of year, with over 3 million tonnes of additional waste generated during the Christmas season. This is why this remains an evergreen topic for us, and one we hope you’ll take to heart every holiday season.

Across lights, gifts, travel, and food, the message of the Carbon Cost of Christmas series remains clear in 2025: we don’t need to abandon tradition to protect the climate. We just need to approach tradition more thoughtfully. We invite you to think about our Five Principles for Climatarian Living to help you not only at Christmas, but across the entire calendar.

A lower-carbon Christmas can still be:

  • Warm and beautifully lit
  • Generous without excess
  • Rich in shared meals and shared journeys
  • Rooted in care for people, communities, and the planet

This season, we invite you to celebrate with intention, curiosity, and compassion, and to remember that every small decision adds up.

Wishing you a joyful, meaningful, and more sustainable Christmas.