Green York: Sustainability at York Christmas Market

York's award-winning Christmas Market is back from 14th November to 22nd December 2024, bringing festive cheer to the heart of the city! With 75 alpine chalets lining Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square, the market offers a magical array of local crafts, artisan products, and delicious seasonal treats.

Sustainable practices were a key part of the selection criteria for selecting this year's traders. York Christmas Market is championing sustainability, from recyclable packaging to sourcing local and eco-friendly ingredients. Discover below some of this year's traders who are doing their best to support the environment through their business. Or, to find out out more and see a full list of all of the traders, click here.

Sustainable Packaging

• Millers and Saint Nick’s Frites, Chalet 2

Miller’s only use packaging that is made from sustainable material and that is recyclable or compostable. In addition, the chips company recycle their oil and preach best practice in staff training and use portion control to cut down on food wastage.

• MoodyMare Patisserie, Chalet 13

MoodyMare’s chocolate bar bags are natureflex and biodegradable, the logo stickers and allergen labels are biodegradable, and the carrier bags are all paper or biodegradable.

• Ellers Farm Distillery, Chalet 33

Ellers Farm Distillery have said they are carbon neutral from day one. Every aspect of their business considers what they can do to produce less waste and use less materials, from using recycled glass to recycled paper cups for sampling and recycled paper bags. At the market, they take all their waste away to be recycled.

• Sloemotion Distillery, Chalet 7

All cardboard waste from Sloemotion Distillery is disposed of in an environmentally responsible way. About 5% of waste cardboard is re-used to help package products, the remainder is disposed of in two ways. Working with the Green Farm land manager, Richard Hudson, the team provide the waste cardboard for spreading in the farm’s pig sheds. The cardboard is played with by the pigs (with proven health benefits for the animals) and then gradually trodden into the bedding, the bedding is then composted and returned to the land as a soil conditioner. At busy times of year when the waste cardboard volumes exceed the demands from the pig sheds, a formal cardboard recycling skip service is used.

• STOSH Workshop, Chalet 18

STOSH Workshop’s products come in reusable bags. All packaging (cardboard, bubble wrap, air pockets) that comes into the workshop is either reused or recycled. Any packaging they buy is either recycled, reusable or recyclable, and where possible they use cardboard and paper tape/packaging/void filling. Furthermore, the only trees they use are from a carefully managed local woodland. All the trees harvested are replaced. The chips and offcuts from the production are used to heat the workshop and the bark/sawdust is used for landscaping/composting.

• Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery, Chalet 48

Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery are removing cardboard sleeves from their bottles in 2024, reducing waste. In the next two years they also plan to change their glass bottle, to a lighter, thinner glass. Additionally, they plan to take back all boxes that whisky is stored in, saving waste from the market itself.

Local Traders: Reduced Transport Emissions

The York Christmas Market takes great pride in being predominantly local, with 80% being Yorkshire based businesses offering food and drink, artisan products and thoughtful gifts.

• StavesArt, Chalet 17

Mounts and backboards are produced by local suppliers which reduces travel costs and their carbon footprint. StavesArt also design and make all the prints in house using recyclable materials with high quality art printers.

• Avorium, Chalet 22

Being a local business, Avorium’s equipment and stock is located just around the corner on Colliergate, so they can walk across the market. They also use a bike courier for all orders placed within the York Ring Road. They offset all the carbon emitted from the production of their products by 200% and plant a tree for every pen they sell. Plus, all their paper is FSC approved and source all paper from forests which are expanding in size and are responsibly managed, rather than being deforested. Avorium also use vegan leather rather than animal products. 

• Chocoholics Anonymous, Chalet 10

Whilst they are based in Lincolnshire, they have a network of friends in York so they do not need to needlessly travel to-and-from York each day. The vast majority of the time they will be in York overnight, unless re-stocking chocolate, thus avoiding needless CO2 emissions from vehicles.

Reducing Waste

• Sweet Treats by Mil, Chalet 56

Sweet Treats by Mil refuse to use single use plastic, and any leftover bakes will not be thrown away but donated to the homeless shelter in York. All packing will also be recycled.

• Hand Turned Pens, Chalet 46

The only waste they produce when making pens is wood chips and sawdust which is either burnt as fuel or composted. Any bubble wrap is re-used in posting out products, and cardboard waste is recycled.

• Lucia Restaurants, Chalet 4

Lucia’s implement a comprehensive waste sorting system with clearly labeled bins for recycling, composting, and general waste. The restaurant uses compost food scraps and biodegradable packaging to reduce landfill waste and create nutrient-rich compost for local gardens.

Sustainable Products

• York Gin, Chalet 16

York Gin use only the very finest, ethically-sourced ingredients, and buy local whenever possible. Powered by green energy, they are plastic free and sending zero waste to landfill. The gin company are also working towards carbon neutrality in partnership with all their suppliers.

• Tommy's Pie Shop, Chalet 6

Accredited with a Green Michelin Star, Tommy Banks has proven “how they’re implementing ethical practices across every element of the business, from using renewable energy to reducing food waste, sourcing from sustainable suppliers, recycling all materials where possible and implementing low-waste culinary techniques such as preservation or nose-to-tail cooking.” All their produce is sustainably sourced, and they aim to work with people that have the same views to ensure that all steps of the foods journey are considered.

• Soctopus, Chalet 35

Soctopus strive to be plastic-free: they use recycled cardboard for the sock hang cards and cotton thread to secure them, and the socks are shipped using recycled paper envelopes. All of their socks are BCI Certified and Soctopus have just launched a new Bamboo range, using FSC Certified bamboo which are sustainable and beneficial to the environment. For Earth Day 2024, they ran a 1 pair = 1 donation promotion in which they donated a percentage from each sale to WWF.

• York Terrariums, Chalet 21

As a plant business, sustainability and environmental impact is an important factor for York Terrariums. There is very little 'waste' in the production of a terrarium and many of their materials are recycled or locally sourced. All their packaging is also recyclable (cardboard boxes and paper bags).

To read the Sustainability Guide for York’s Christmas Market, click here. To discover more about Christmas in one of the UK’s most festive cities, click here.