Four Tips for Choosing Sustainable Products During the Holidays

The Holidays are a joyous time of the year. They give us a reason to get together with friends and family, make new memories, and express gratitude. However, this time of year also leads to more consumption, more waste, and a greater impact on the environment. In fact, in the US alone, we throw away 25% more trash from Thanksgiving to New Year’s than during any other period of the year.

Here’s the good news: you don’t have to give up on the holidays or change your entire approach in order to be more sustainable. Instead, you can take a few simple steps to choose more eco-friendly products, which allows you to protect the environment. Here’s how.

Why Buy Sustainable?

Sustainable products are made with better materials and practices in an effort to cause less harm to the planet (and in some cases, even reverse harm.) Companies accomplish this in a variety of ways, each specifically designed to protect the environment. Below are just a few examples.

Limiting Carbon Emissions

Manufacturing products often results in the release of carbon emissions, which drive global warming. Some brands have practices in place to limit or mitigate their carbon emissions.

Choosing Better Materials

Many products are plastic-based, which means they are ultimately made of crude oil. This is especially true in the fast fashion industry, where companies use synthetic fabrics often. These products not only create carbon emissions during manufacturing, but they also don’t biodegrade like natural materials do. In fact, some plastic can take 500 years to break down. Sustainable products focus on using natural materials that can break down at the end of their useful life.

Reducing Waste

Traditional products typically come with a lot of packaging, which is often made of plastic. This plastic is essentially created just to be thrown away, which is quite wasteful. Sustainable products typically have less packaging, and what packaging they do use is made from recyclable or biodegradable materials.

Improving Energy Efficiency

Much of our energy, including the energy that fuels the manufacturing and shipping processes, relies on fossil fuels that add to carbon emissions. Sustainable products often take this into account and find ways to utilize cleaner energy sources.

Four Tips for Purchasing Sustainable Products and Gifts

1. Check Fabric Contents

If you’re giving the gift of fashion this year, be sure to check the fabric content of a product before you make a purchase. As we discussed above, synthetic fabrics like rayon, polyester, and nylon are much more harmful to the planet than natural fabrics, like cotton, wool, and silk.

It’s worth noting that some clothing requires the use of some synthetic materials, like performance apparel, since it’s these materials that give the clothing its performance features. If you’re on the hunt for workout clothes, be sure to look for recycled fabrics. The fabrics turn plastic bottles that would have ended up in the landfill into usable fabrics.

That’s why Zola creates performance apparel that’s made from recycled, organic, and natural fabrics. You can read more about our materials here.

2. Look for Sustainable Packaging

While online shopping is incredibly convenient, it also creates a lot of waste due to shipping materials. Aim to buy products that come in biodegradable or recyclable containers. For example, Zola uses 100% recycled and naturally biodegradable shipping bags from EcoEnclose.

Likewise, if you’re purchasing something off the shelf, consider what type of packaging it’s in. Is it covered in plastic? Is there an alternative option that doesn’t use plastic packaging?

3. Consider Shipping Methods

The way that products arrive at your doorstep matters, too. Before making a purchase, look into the shipping practices of the brand you’re buying from. Many sustainable brands offer carbon-neutral shipping, which means that the net release of their carbon emissions is zero. They may create emissions during shipping, but they also offset those emissions later on.

For example, Zola uses Sendle to offer 100% carbon-neutral shipping. Through this partnership, Sendle calculates how much carbon we generate, then fuels initiatives that reduce carbon emissions, like restoring rainforest habitats.

4. Choose Quality

It can be tempting to purchase products simply because they are trendy and affordable. Unfortunately, these products tend to fall apart or go out of style quickly, which means they end up in landfills faster than they should.

When buying products, consider their quality. Ask yourself how long you expect this product to last. Look to see if there’s another version of the product that could last you longer. This allows you to avoid generating unnecessary waste and ensures that you don’t create more demand for harmful industries like fast fashion.

Ultimately, choosing sustainable products comes down to doing research. By arming yourself with the knowledge of what matters most, you’ll be better prepared to buy eco-friendly products and protect the environment.

If you or someone you care about are in need of performance apparel this holiday season, be sure to check out Zola. You can read about our sustainability practices here, or start shopping by clicking here.