Dreaming of a green Christmas
People have aspirations to achieve a green Christmas and New Year, according to a new study by Friends Provident. 
The study revealed that 27% of respondents were willing to buy a green Christmas gift and 35% were willing to hunt for a health or beauty related Christmas gift that hasn’t been tested on animals. One fifth are giving a ‘charity’ gift that will help others.
This year, only 8% will send more than 50 Christmas cards in the mail, a four-fold decrease in the last two years. Over half of us are instead relying on the phone or email to send our Christmas Greetings.
Ashley Taylor, corporate responsibility manager at Friends Provident said:
“It’s great to see that we’re starting to think more about the impact of the products and services we’re consuming, especially around the festive period, which is traditionally a time of excess. It seems people are considering the wider implications of the purchases they’re making, such as how green the product is, or under what conditions it was made. This research shows that, far from the recession making Christmas Scrooges of us all, it’s encouraging us to think about others.”
And it seems our good intentions are stretching beyond Christmas, too. Friends Provident’s research found that people are foregoing the traditional resolutions of eating more healthily, quitting smoking or cutting down on booze; 37% of those surveyed stated instead that they had an ethical or green New Year’s Resolution, with the most popular of these promises being to reduce their carbon footprint.
Let’s hope the resolutions last longer than the Copenhagen climate summit.