5 gestures for an eco-friendly Christmas

This post is also available in: Français (French)

Want to do your part for the planet at Christmas? Great! And thank you! If each of us takes these initiatives this year, it will be significant. If you wish to go green this Christmas, here are my suggestions:

1- Compensate for your flight if you are travelling for the holidays

Did you know that there are web platforms that allow you to offset your polluting actions of any kind by purchasing carbon credits? It’s a great idea. However, it is important to select a credible platform to ensure that the compensation is real and of high quality. Equiterre recommends platforms on its website.

For example, our two-way flight from Montreal to Rome in economy class represents an emissions of 4.5 tonnes of CO2. We paid $119 to compensate for this pollution and were able to choose an ecological project of our choice in which to invest our amount. Our choice was based on a reforestation project taking place in Montreal, Quebec.

2- Adopt a holiday menu with less meat and more vegetarian options

Reducing meat consumption has several benefits. Canada’s new food guide proves it. Here are a few:

• It’s good for the environment
• It’s good for your health
• It’s appreciated by your vegetarian guests
• It’s economical
• It’s less caloric (often)

For inspiration, check out the less meaty holiday menu I’ve made!

3- Carpool to the party

A party in sight? Consider offering carpooling to those who live close to you. The more, the merrier!

4- Offer Eco-Friendly gifts

Celebrating the holiday season rhymes with gifts! And it’s festive! And while consuming less and better is paramount, it’s important to give and it’s frankly exciting to receive too! Instead of falling into generic clichés, useless gifts or over-packaged objects, consider offering a useful and original present. Like what:

• A gift in honour of the person to a cause dear to him or her.
• A good bottle of olive oil. My olive tree offers you the opportunity to sponsor an olive tree in Italy and order a very high quality oil at the checkout. A great opportunity to fill your pantry and gift reserve!
• A cultural or sporting outing to spend quality time together.
• An eco-responsible gift,either because it is made in Canada, or because it is durable and replaces a normally disposable or short-lived property (e.g. les pailles réutilisables).

Check out my online store and make gifts to your hosts, teachers, Christmas socks or bigger gifts that are eco-responsible and useful!

5- Make zero waste gift wrappers

Gift wrappers strike the imagination! Our childhood memories are tinged with those moments of magic to fix the beautiful gifts under the tree and especially to tear the paper when the time comes to discover the coveted content! I get it! I’ve experienced it! But I believe that we are elsewhere and that it is possible to create new memories!

The amount of waste generated by these packages is monstrous. And their lifespan is so short, it’s unnaceptable! Check out mysuggestions for eco-friendly holiday packaging and have fun!