Is green the new black?

Over the past few years, a new movement has been gaining traction to promote a more sustainable alternative to Black Friday. While Black Friday sales have fallen in the last couple of years, a total of £3billion was spent in the UK over the period in 2023. Over the ever-increasing Black Friday period consumers are bombarded with messaging telling them to spend, spend, spend making it easy to get caught up and buy products you don’t necessarily need.

This over consumption has a knock-on effect especially for the environment. Its predicted 80% of products bought on Black Friday ultimately end up in landfill, are incinerated or are recycled poorly. It is also expected to produce 429,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from product deliveries alone; that’s the same as 435 return flights from London to New York and this doesn’t take into account people returning items.

All this has helped drive the Green Friday movement that is encouraging people to be more thoughtful with their purchases or even ignore Black Friday altogether. To help take this new mindset going into Black Friday the Green Friday movement has created some guidelines:

Eco-Friendly Shopping:

• Encourage buying from brands with sustainable practices, such as using recycled materials or offering carbon-neutral shipping.
• Promotes purchasing durable, high-quality items instead of disposable or poorly made products.

Reduction of Consumption:

• Inspire people to reflect on whether they truly need an item before buying it.
• Advocates for minimalism and avoiding unnecessary purchases.

Support for Secondhand and Local Options:

• Highlight thrift shopping, upcycling, and buying locally sourced products to reduce the environmental footprint.

This has led to brands such as Passenger to rethink their Black Friday approach and have committed to planting 5 trees and protecting 1,000 sqm of rainforest with every order over the period. Patagonia took this once step further in 2023 by donating all their profits from Black Friday to environmental organisations, which was predicted to be over $10 million.

With the popularity of Green Friday increasing, it might be time for brands to access the environmental impact of their Black Friday offers, especially those who promote their sustainable credentials. However, any Green Friday promotions or messages should be genuine to avoid accusations of greenwashing.