As business activity slows over Christmas, organisations have a valuable opportunity to reduce energy use — but the season can also drive up waste and emissions. Jon Cranefield and Simon Chiva from Sustainable Energy First share simple steps to help businesses tread more lightly this Christmas.
Check your heating schedule for the shutdown
Heating pre-sets are your friend the rest of the year, but for the festive season you might want to override the usual settings. If nobody is on site, you can cut a lot of energy waste and carbon by turning the thermostat right down. Double-check the settings to make sure it’s back to normal by the time people return to work.
Simon: Just make sure your system is warm enough to prevent frozen pipes – we recommend at least 5°C for frost protection.
Cut down on low occupancy days
This is the time of year where some offices have very quiet days with almost nobody in. Low occupancy isn’t very green: running the same heating and lighting for half or a third of the people means you’re essentially doubling or tripling the carbon footprint per worker. If you usually have a run of super-quiet days in the lead-up to Christmas, we suggest shutting the office properly for longer instead.
Jon: Many businesses offer hybrid working contracts where staff have to be on site a few days a week. For the Christmas period, we suggest making an exception and allowing WFH if there’s no need for someone to be physically present.
Try a new spin on fun jumpers
Christmas Jumper Day is a laugh and raises money for charity, but research from a few years ago finds that we’re buying around 12 million jumpers a year just to wear for a few hours – even when last year’s is still languishing in the wardrobe. 95% of new novelty sweaters contain plastic, so they’ll shed microplastics from being worn and washed. We’d suggest trying something more sustainable for Christmas Jumper Day. How about a competition for the best charity shop find? Or get everybody upcycling something they already own?
Simon: Less than 1% of used textiles get turned back into new fabrics – the world doesn’t need more fast fashion! Turning Christmas Jumper Day from a shopping competition into a different kind of challenge gets us thinking differently about clothes.
Switch off staff fridges
If you have fridges for staff use and the office is closing for a few days over Christmas, take the opportunity to switch them off. As well as saving energy, it lets you sort out any frost build-up or blockages that might be making the fridge run less efficiently. It’s also a great excuse to clear the fridge of any abandoned food and give it a good clean.
Jon: A good-sized office fridge can use 2kWh of electricity a day. If the grid intensity is 240g/kWh, that’s 720g over three days – enough energy to boil the kettle for nearly 150 cups of tea!
Celebrate sustainably
Christmas office traditions are a welcome morale boost, but some generate a lot of impossible-to-recycle waste. We’re always surprised by how many workplaces set an annual budget for decorations, because they’re fully expecting to bin them rather than reusing any. Only buy plastic decorations if you have a plan for how to store them. Otherwise go for paper and card.
Another big culprit for waste is the office Secret Santa. We’d suggest asking people to share a sweet treat rather than a joke gift the recipient won’t know what to do with.
Simon: Bringing in greener traditions doesn’t mean being a Scrooge – it means having more fun with your own creative twist on things.
Thinking beyond Christmas
The festive shutdown is a great moment to notice what’s working (and what isn’t!) in how your buildings use energy. If switching things off for a week makes a big difference, imagine what smarter controls, better data, or a longer-term energy strategy could achieve year-round.
Sustainable Energy First works with organisations to identify practical changes that cut carbon, reduce waste, and lower costs for the long term. If you’re thinking about what 2026 could look like for your energy use, get in touch with our experts.
Authors: Jon Cranefield is Head of Responsible Consumption and Simon Chiva is Head of Climate Action at Sustainable Energy First.
