20 Expert Tips for a Sustainable Holiday Season

For a season full of joy and the spirit of giving as the holiday season, it’s a pity that it’s also when the household waste skyrockets. The spur-of-the-moment shopping and family feasts result in excess food waste.

Meanwhile, festive lights tip the scales in energy consumption. Not to mention a sea of discarded wrapping material from gift exchanges – all of which takes a toll on the environment.

But you can help turn things around by making small but impactful changes to your holiday gifting, shopping, decorating, traveling, and feasting. We’ve got 20 great ideas to help you get started.

1. Buy Energy Star Festive Lights

Replacing traditional decorative lights with Energy Star-certified ones can result in annual energy cost savings of about $850 million and a GHG emission reduction of 9.9 billion pounds. That’s right! Energy Star LED string lights are highly energy efficient, using 75% less energy than incandescent lighting.

They are also more pocket-friendly and last longer, even in plunging temperatures. That’s not all. You get a wider array of styles and color options in LED, giving you all the more reason to never opt for incandescent lighting again.

2. Give Homemade or Upcycled Gifts

There’s no gift more thoughtful than something that you made from scratch. So, how about getting your creativity on this festive season and making your own gifts instead of off-the-rack shopping?

From baking a batch of cookies to crocheted items to handmade soaps - you are only limited by your imagination. You can also get plenty of ideas off Pinterest or get hold of upcycled gift items from Etsy if DIY gifting is not your jam.

Related Article: Upcycling vs Recycling - Which is Better For Planet Earth? 

3. Mindful Decorations

On your shopping trips, fight the temptation to reach for new shimmery baubles and tree toppers. Instead, rummage through your attic for old decor that can be repurposed quickly.

Reusing decorations from the past will give a classic twist to your festivities and help cut down waste. Let’s face it: Brand-new decor usually arrives in plastic packaging, most of which is non-recyclable. It’s always more sustainable to create your decorations or spruce up something you’ve used in previous holiday seasons.

4. Give Your Festive Decor a Nature-Inspired Twist

While we’re on the topic of decorations, consider giving your holiday celebrations a nature-inspired spin by using natural, seasonal elements to create ornaments and centerpieces.

Related Article: 20 Sustainable Home Decor Ideas You’ll Love

Go foraging with your family to collect pinecones, acorns, twigs, and berries – the raw material for your festive decor. Instead of being stuck with cartons full of plastic-based ornaments, natural decorations can easily be composted after use.

5. Opt for Reusable Cloth Gift Bags

Barely half the estimated 4.6 million pounds of wrapping paper produced in the U.S. each year gets recycled. The rest ends up in landfills as most gift-wrapping material contains glitter and other metallic elements that do not qualify for recycling. 

You could wrap the items with your kid’s artwork or recycled paper. Or, do one better and opt for our reusable gift bags. Our holiday-themed gift bags are made from 100% certified organic cotton and come with convenient draw-string closure to secure your precious gift inside.

What’s more, they’re easy to wash and reuse. In other words, it is a gift wrap that keeps on giving.

6. Shop Consciously and Choose Local Businesses

Shopping sprees are fun, but poorly planned visits to the supermarket can increase fuel consumption, impacting your personal carbon footprint.

To top it all, many of the items you buy at large format stores come from far-flung places, manufactured and transported at a great expense to the environment.

You can save time and money and cut down on a great deal of waste by creating a well-thought-out shopping list. Once you have your list, try sourcing as many products as possible from local businesses and mom-and-pop stores.

7. Opt for Eco-Friendly Shopping Bags

Always keep a few grocery bags in your car during the holiday season. You never know when you’ll need them.

Bringing your own bags also helps you avoid paying more at checkout for new reusable grocery bags that are no match for the sturdy, reusable ones you already own.

8. Get Creative with Food Leftovers

A little menu planning can go a long way in tackling food waste - a frequent fallout of festive feasts. But if you do end up with leftovers, don’t stress or throw them away.

There are several lip-smacking recipes floating online that use leftovers as primary ingredients to whip up a whole menu of new crowd-pleasers. Sandwiches, pot pies, croquettes, curries, frittatas, soups, and muffins come instantly to mind.

9. Recycle Real Christmas Trees

If you’ve sourced a real Christmas tree, make sure it’s composted or recycled properly at the end of the festive season. Live, natural trees are biodegradable, and if you no longer have any use for them, consider composting them, chipping them into a mulch, or donating them to environmental projects.

Many communities offer curbside collection for two to three weeks after the festive season. You can get a rundown on curbside pickups, drop-off recycling centers, and mulching programs on Earth911 or the National Christmas Tree Association.

10. Support a Cause

Channel your festive spirit into volunteering and giving back. You’ll find many homeless shelters, food banks, and charities that would appreciate extra helping hands to care for those in need.

Consider donating unused gifts, toys, clothes, and nonperishable food to local charities to spread holiday cheer to underprivileged children and families.

11. Say Yes to Eco-Conscious Travel

Increased travel is a major contributor to the environmental footprint of the holiday season. No, we aren’t asking you to give up traveling with your loved ones, but here are a few things you can do to lower your carbon footprint: When running local errands or festive shopping, consider opting for carpool or public transport.

Planning your shopping well in advance is another way to knock off maximum items off your list instead of going on spontaneous, multiple shipping sprees.

12. Fly Like a N.E.R.D

Speaking of holiday travel, if you and your family plan to travel outside of your home cities, ditch flights in favor of train or road travel or fly like a N.E.R.D. This rule of thumb helps you make your air travel more fuel-efficient. Here’s what it recommends:

New: Opt for newer aircraft that are more fuel efficient. Think A320neo or Boein 787-8.

Economy: Fly coach, where the higher the number of occupied seats, the lower the emissions per passenger.

Regular: Opt for medium-sized, regular jets that are more efficient than their fuel-guzzling larger, regional counterparts.

Direct: Circuitous routes mean more fuel burn. So, skip layovers and go for direct flights wherever possible.

If flying like a N.E.R.D. is a no-go, consider offsetting your air travel impact. Companies like Terrapass and Sustainable Travel International offer a number of ways to help you reduce your carbon emissions.

13. Make Time for Things You Enjoy

Hone a skill or pick a new hobby to make the most of your time away from work. Cooking, painting, gardening, journaling, reading - anything you’re passionate about will help you unwind while being mentally, physically, and spiritually rewarding.

You could start a DIY arts and crafts project with your kids to make sure they don’t get bored with all the extra time on their hands.

14. Add Organic and Seasonal Recipes to Your Feast

Visiting local farmers’ markets will not only benefit the local economy but also help you access a wide array of organically grown and farm-fresh produce. In-season fruits and veggies available in these markets usually come from within a 50-mile radius.

In other words, their environmental impact is much lower than store-bought groceries that may have traveled over 1000 miles before they make it to your dinner table.

Incorporate as many locally produced and organic ingredients into your holiday feast as possible. Not only will your meals taste better, they’ll be healthier for you, your loved ones, and the planet.

15. Gift Zero Waste Starter Kits

Gifting zero-waste starter kits to your friends can help more families embrace sustainable living. These kits contain reusable, low-impact alternatives for kitchen, bathroom, laundry, and travel essentials.

You can order them online or curate your own with cotton kitchen towels, bamboo toothbrushes, wool dryer balls, shampoo and conditioner bars, reusable canvas grocery bags, and other essentials to help your friends cut back on plastic waste.

16. Give Experiential Gifts to Family

This festive season, gift your loved ones your time through experiential gifting. Visit a museum, attend a concert or a workshop, go on an outdoor adventure - anything that’ll help you spend quality time with your family.

This way, you’re not only minimizing shopping, wrapping, and waste but also making memories that’ll last forever.

You can pack these gifts in our fabric gift bags to make it more eco friendly.

17. Ditch Disposable Tableware

When you’re hosting a big feast or throwing a party, opting for disposable dinnerware and paper napkins might seem like the more sensible thing to do. But the convenience comes at a cost to the environment.

Between all that gift wrapping, tree ornaments, and shopping sprees, the holiday season can get quite wasteful. Why add to the waste with disposable tableware? Dust off your treasured china and opt for reusable cloth napkins instead.

Sure, it’ll make the post-party clean-up a hassle, but we bet you’ll be pleased with how little waste your fiesta generated.

18. Thrifting Over Buying New Items

If you want to gift your friends and family one-of-a-kind items instead of mass-produced ones, exploring local thrift stores and consignment shops might be worth your while.

These are great spots to find a slew of upcycled, repurposed, and vintage items that’ll thrill the receivers while keeping your environmental footprint in check.

19. Opt for Plant-Based Foods

Meat-based recipes may be surefire crowd-pleasers, but this holiday season, we’d love for you to incorporate more plant-based meals into your diet. It so happens that meat production and related activities cause twice the pollution that is caused by the production of plant-based foods.

By cutting back on your meat consumption or giving it up altogether, you can reduce your carbon footprint substantially.

20. Unplug or Power Down Electronics When Not in Use

Did you know that phantom load or energy consumed by electronics in standby mode amounts to 5 to 10% of a household’s electricity consumption? If you’re traveling, make sure you power down or unplug computers, TVs, microwaves, printers, lamps, and TVs.

Even if you’re home, ensure electronics are disconnected from the power source when not in use. This will stop the gadgets from drawing power and adding to your energy bill.

In fact, the holiday season is a great time for the entire family to go on a bit of digital detox to save electricity as well as spend quality, device-free time together.

Final Thoughts

Between all the gifting, feasting, and festivities, we often lose sight of our activities' impact on the planet. So, if you’ve wanted to have a less wasteful holiday season and still ended up with a mountain of items you have no use for.

Well, it’s time to change that. These sustainable holiday season tips will help you lower your environmental footprint, save money, and reduce food waste - without taking away any of the fun and merry-making.

As far as unrecyclable waste goes, you can help minimize it by swapping single-use bags with Organic Cotton Mart’s reusable shopping bags and gift wrapping paper with our holiday-themed fabric gift bags.