Green Your Holiday Season in 6 Innovative Steps

How do you keep up your sustainable lifestyle during the festive Christmas and New Year’s period? We’ve put together some tips to keep you on track.

We get it, it has been “quite a year for the climate” – to quote Ed Hawkins – but it will be 2017 before you know it, and these top tips will help keep you on the sustainability track throughout December.

1. Keeping Warm


As temperatures drop it’s tempting to crank the heating up most of the day. Why not invest in a fun smart heating control product this winter. Not only will you save a lot of money on your heating bill, you will also help cut down on carbon-burning heating. Smart thermostats, like the ones from Climate-KIC startup tado°, treat each house and heating system differently and learn how to heat your home accordingly – they even take the weather forecast into account.

2. Christmas tree


Choose a living tree that you can replant after the festivities have ended. Not only can you reuse it year-after-year, trees are great for removing carbon from the air and make sure you have that authentic Christmas smell in your home. Not convinced? NASA has done the math, and a real tree really has a lower carbon footprint than a plastic one.

3. Gifts


Look for locally produced items that haven’t travelled as far to make it under your Christmas tree. Avoid plastic heavy presents and ones that require batteries. Batteries contain toxic chemicals and are hard to recycle so if you can go for mains operated or invest in some rechargeable batteries.

4. Wrapping Paper


When wrapping up your gifts choose eco-friendly wrapping paper that has been made from sustainable fibres or recycled paper. In 2006 the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimated that all the paper wasted at Christmas would be enough to wrap up the Channel island of Guernsey. Whatever you do, make sure to recycle all your paper this month!

5. Leftovers


Make sure you don’t let your Christmas dinner leftovers go to waste. Research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – a Climate-KIC partner – shows that reducing food waste helps fight climate change. So your festive leftover sandwich can go towards helping tackle climate change.

6. Take Action by Starting a Business


Perhaps the best way to offset your carbon footprint this December is to take tome time to figure out how you can take action in 2017. And why not combine it with a massive boost to your career? One place to find out about the business opportunities of the low carbon economy is a climate innovation and entrepreneurship summer school organised by Climate-KIC.

Find out if you qualify for the Climate-KIC Journey summer school in 2017.

 
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