Not Just for Christmas

Advent Calendar Jo Littler

"There are many ways to have an ethical, green, or sustainable Christmas. If there was one thing you would want people to do every day as well, what would it be?"

"There are many ways to have an ethical, green, or sustainable Christmas. If there was one thing you would want people to do every day as well, what would it be?"

Jo Littler is Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, London. She is author of Radical Consumption: Shopping for Change in Contemporary Culture (Open University Press, 2008). Back to the NJfC Advent Calendar	"I grew up in a house with a plastic Christmas tree but this year, for the second year running, I have a ‘real’ one. I know it’s not ideal and it would be better just to draw a big groovy outline of a tree on a wall with non-toxic crayons, or wrap my rubber plant in tinsel, as Leo Hickman urges us in The Guardian. I’ve done both of these things in the past – partly for reasons of money and space – but as I’ve finally got a little more of both I want a tree, goddammit. I’m not the only one. Christmas trees are popular. Apparently if we are having an environmental face-off between them, ‘real’ are better than plastic in that plastic trees tend to last not for ‘a lifetime’ but only for nine years on average before they get chucked in the bin. And as Mimi Sheller discusses elsewhere on this calendar, plastic and aluminium trees have already spewed out a wealth of toxic chemicals and CO2 along the way. What struck me this year, being a recent participant to all this tree business, was just how ridiculously hard it is to find a Christmas tree from a reliably sustainable source – and ironically, how much harder this process is without a car (which I don’t have and don't want). This latter point really seemed to put the ‘moronic’ into oxymoronic. I got one in the end from somewhere relatively local and sustainable. But the process wasn’t in any way easy or consumer-friendly. So I think what I’d like to ‘see people doing this year’ is to see the people at the British Christmas Tree Growers Association and the Soil Association teaming up with the people at DEFRA to produce a ‘Green Christmas Tree mark’ for trees from certified organic and renewable sites. And then I’d like to see phase two of this process, which would give incentives to organic and sustainable Christmas tree farmers. This would be swiftly followed by phase three, which would ban both the importing of Christmas trees and their unsustainable farming in the UK. This of course gestures to a much larger set of issues which, like the big-eyed puppy, are not just for Christmas. Green labelling and regulation in general needs to improve but, crucially, it needs to be ‘owned’ by all of us through government regulations rather than left to the whims of profit-seeking corporations who are ultimately guided by the bottom line and who will tell us they are green when they are anything but. The exemplary work of the CORE coalition is leading the way in campaigning for corporate accountability, and I’d like to see more people supporting it in the New Year. "

Jo Littler is Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, London. She is author of Radical Consumption: Shopping for Change in Contemporary Culture (Open University Press, 2008).

Back to the NJfC Advent
Calendar

"I grew up in a house with a plastic Christmas tree but this year, for the second year running, I have a ‘real’ one.

I know it’s not ideal and it would be better just to draw a big groovy outline of a tree on a wall with non-toxic crayons, or wrap my rubber plant in tinsel, as Leo Hickman urges us in The Guardian. I’ve done both of these things in the past – partly for reasons of money and space – but as I’ve finally got a little more of both I want a tree, goddammit.

I’m not the only one. Christmas trees are popular. Apparently if we are having an environmental face-off between them, ‘real’ are better than plastic in that plastic trees tend to last not for ‘a lifetime’ but only for nine years on average before they get chucked in the bin. And as Mimi Sheller discusses elsewhere on this calendar, plastic and aluminium trees have already spewed out a wealth of toxic chemicals and CO2 along the way.

What struck me this year, being a recent participant to all this tree business, was just how ridiculously hard it is to find a Christmas tree from a reliably sustainable source – and ironically, how much harder this process is without a car (which I don’t have and don't want). This latter point really seemed to put the ‘moronic’ into oxymoronic.

I got one in the end from somewhere relatively local and sustainable. But the process wasn’t in any way easy or consumer-friendly. So I think what I’d like to ‘see people doing this year’ is to see the people at the British Christmas Tree Growers Association and the Soil Association teaming up with the people at DEFRA to produce a ‘Green Christmas Tree mark’ for trees from certified organic and renewable sites. And then I’d like to see phase two of this process, which would give incentives to organic and sustainable Christmas tree farmers. This would be swiftly followed by phase three, which would ban both the importing of Christmas trees and their unsustainable farming in the UK.

This of course gestures to a much larger set of issues which, like the big-eyed puppy, are not just for Christmas. Green labelling and regulation in general needs to improve but, crucially, it needs to be ‘owned’ by all of us through government regulations rather than left to the whims of profit-seeking corporations who are ultimately guided by the bottom line and who will tell us they are green when they are anything but. The exemplary work of the CORE coalition is leading the way in campaigning for corporate accountability, and I’d like to see more people supporting it in the New Year. "

DamianSutton	Latest page update: made by DamianSutton , Dec 17 2008, 5:10 PM EST (about this update About This Update Moved from: Advent Calendar - DamianSutton No content added or deleted. - complete history)
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