Sustainable Santa: helping cut carbon emissions at Christmas

Well, here we are. The days are getting shorter, the smell of mulled wine is filling the air, and Michael Bublé has once again emerged from hibernation. It can mean only one thing; Christmas has arrived.

For old St. Nick and his merry band of elves, it is ‘go’ time. They’ll have spent the last few months frantically making toys for all the boys and girls (as well as mining coal for the naughty ones), and in a few short days will have these loaded up on Santa’s sleigh ready to make one epic delivery run.

But, let us suspend disbelief for a second and imagine a world where…heaven forbid…reindeers can’t fly. Mr. Claus would then be forced to rely on other means to power his sleigh, which will inevitably have something of an environmental footprint.

In fact, according to a blog from Shell, if Father Christmas was to fuel his sleigh with petrol he’d need around 30 million litres of it. As petrol produces roughly 2.3kgs of CO₂ per litre burnt, this means that his carbon emissions for the hectic, present-delivering trip would be roughly 69,000 tonnes – around the same amount as the annual emissions of 15,000 passenger cars.

Helping Santa with sustainability

The first thought for Kris Kringle when looking at his sustainability initiatives might be to go electric. It would, after all, more or less eliminate his tailpipe emissions. But there are two issues here. Firstly, for a battery to support the weight of a sleigh filled with millions of presents it would need to be massive. Secondly, with the tight schedule our jolly red friend must adhere to, the time required to stop and recharge would be immensely prohibitive.

His best bet would be to try and increase his fuel efficiency which, as fortune would have it, is exactly the result you get from using NEOL’s CuGlide technology. It is an anti-wear additive designed to protect against wear and restore existing defects in machine parts – increasing the lifespan of machines and improving their performance.

For commercial vehicles (which, lets face it, the sleigh kind of is) this provides a longer ‘useful’ life, a cleaner engine and an average fuel economy improvement of 5%. For St. Nicholas himself, this would mean a reduction in emissions of 3,450 tonnes. Plus, for his hard-working elves, there would be far less time and energy spent in the workshop fixing and replacing the various parts of his sleigh.

All achieved by simply changing the oil being used.

Reducing emissions over the holidays

The stark reality is that, naughty and nice lists aside, most presents being received over the holidays won’t be delivered by sleigh. They will be delivered via a combination of ships, trucks, vans and cars, and the carbon emissions from these will be far higher than any sleigh. Estimates suggest that last year in Europe 1.2 million tonnes of CO₂ would have been released during Black Friday week alone.

While there is a drive towards using emission-free commercial vehicles, including electric and hydrogen ICEs, we are a considerable way from these being a viable option for most businesses. For now, we need to change our approach to the tools we already have, which is why NEOL have made it their mission to radically boost the efficiency of machinery, while simultaneously cutting down emissions.

Improved fuel economy means less fuel burnt, and the extended lifespan means fewer machines and vehicles ending up in landfills. Additionally, as CuGlide technology has been designed to be fully recyclable, it is made using copper salts instead of toxic phosphorus and sulphur compounds. All of this combined can provide a substantial boost towards companies’ eco-initiatives and help reduce their carbon footprint – not just for Christmas, but for life.

Find out more about CuGlide technology here.