He is best known for his red suit but Santa Claus remains the world’s greenest traveller.
While politicians and celebrities racked up more carbon than Scotland uses in a year to attend Cop26 in Glasgow, Fr. Christmas is lean and green – at least when it comes to emissions.
A study by delivery management experts, Urbantz, has calculated how much fuel Santa would use if his sleigh was powered by petrol, diesel or even electricity instead of magic dust.
It turns out his carbon output would be dwarfed compared to Black Friday deliveries and other delivery journeys, making his sleigh one of the cleanest means of travel.
The study is based on Fr. Christmas travelling an estimated 163,887,789km (101,835,119 miles) If he used petrol it would cost a staggering £15.9 million or £13.9 million if he opted for diesel. Electricity would be just a fraction of those amounts, at an estimated £572,000 while a hybrid sleigh comes in at £9.7 million. Santa’s total carbon emissions would amount to 31,000 tonnes.
By comparison, Black Friday deliveries are a staggering 429,000 tonnes, not to mention the mountains of packaging and bubble wrap involved.
Jonathan Weber, Urbantz Co-Founder & CEO said: “Santa has an undeniably enormous task every Christmas, taking on the biggest delivery route in history. It’s astounding to see the millions he would have to spend on fuel alone to single-handedly deliver all the presents if his magic and reindeer energy had run out.
“It also helps put into perspective the impact on the environment of normal everyday deliveries – even if Santa’s 100 million mile journey were powered by petrol, it would still produce just a fraction of the carbon emissions caused by a shopping event like Black Friday.”
Santa was unavailable for comment as he is busy preparing for Christmas Eve. However, an elf spokesman thanked Urbantz for their study.
“Oh my, how kind of this company to go to all this trouble for Father Christmas,” said Buddy the elf.
“Of course, as Mr. Weber points out, the sleigh is powered by magic dust and reindeers which means a zero carbon footprint. I’d also like to point out that Santa always cleans up after Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph so there is absolutely no mess left on anyone’s roof top.”
Added Buddy: “A Merry Christmas to all!”
