FSC’s card pledge campaigns for forest-friendly festive cheer – but encourages Christmas card sending
Forest-friendly Christmas cheer is the aim of a new campaign by the Forest Stewardship Council UK which is encouraging the public to send Christmas cards, but urging them to pick FSC-certified product.
The organisation that promotes environmentally-appropriate management of the world’s forests is asking people to take the FSC Christmas Card Pledge and choose forest-friendly seasons’ greetings to send, which covers the vast majority of designs on sale in the UK in any case.
And FSC is backing the campaign with a whole host of publicity that reinforces the importance of sending physical cards, stating: “While it’s much easier to send Christmas well wishes digitally these days, we still love sending and receiving Christmas cards.
“Research by Oxfam found that nine out of 10 people in the UK prefer to receive a real Christmas card instead of a text or email. Although they seem like a small gesture, a lot of effort goes into choosing, writing, and posting a card.”
FSC is also using GCA research to back up the statement: “You might be thinking that we should be cutting down on the number of Christmas cards we send to save paper but we are a nation of card lovers in the UK, we send more per head than any other nation!”
And it’s pushing the vibe that digital messages just don’t replace that “warm fuzzy feeling of reading a handwritten message from friends and family near and far”, while many like to use cards received as Christmas decorations “and you definitely can’t do that with an email or a text”!
Explaining the FSC tick tree logo on cards shows they are made with materials from responsibly-managed forests and/or recycled sources, the non-governmental organisation wants people to sign up to the pledge where they will be sent tips and tricks on how to have a more forest-friendly Christmas.
And if you tag @FSC.UK before 2 January in a Facebook post, or @foreststewardshipcounciluk on Instagram, of a photo of one of the FSC-certified cards you’re sending, you’ll be entered into the council’s prize draw to win a £100 John Lewis giftcard – full ts&cs available here.
FSC is also reminding everyone to recycle their cards and wrapping paper after the big day – research from Business Waste shows only one in four cards are recycled, while the amount of wrap binned totals 238,855 miles (384,400km) in the UK alone.
