What impact is consumer demand for traditionally unseasonal Christmas trimmings having on the climate?
What impact is consumer demand for traditionally unseasonal Christmas trimmings having on the climate?
Supermarkets are now stocking typically summery produce all year round, to feed an increasingly demanding consumer market, where seasonal availability no longer dictates winter supplies. UK customers can now enjoy strawberries with their figgy pudding, dress the festive dinner with a vase of fresh tulips and place a potted poinsettia under the Christmas tree1.
Not only does this high level of demand force more trade away from local businesses, but it inevitably increases the Christmas clog as trains of delivery vans join the jams of festive shoppers on the roads2. With a quarter of all carbon emissions in the UK being accounted for by transport3, the rapidly rising trend for warm-weather fruits in the winter looks likely to increase this figure. How ‘sustainable’ is it to fuel the desire for strawberries at Christmas?
Click here to read an RPS Transport Consultant’s recent article
(kindly reproduced from Transportation Professional – magazine of the Institution of Highways and Transportation, December 2007)
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1.Tulips are naturally spring flowering, and the Mexican poinsettia shrub would prefer to bloom in autumn in the colder UK temperatures. Amongst other bright plants cheering UK winter supermarkets, carefully controlled conditions can ‘force’ them into flower at unseasonal times.
2. Air miles have also taken their toll on this winters transport impact, with a dramatic rise in UK people wintering abroad, and gathering gifts overseas – New York featuring as a particularly popular Christmas shopping destination.
3. Transport represents about 30% of total UK energy use (mostly in oil).