Village Sustainability Newsletter November 2025
SUSTAINABILITY – WORKING TOWARDS THE COFE’S CARBON NEUTRAL TARGET 2030
Love and Stuff
This week, while indulging my passion of exploring photography at the excellent Photo Oxford festival, I found myself in the fascinating Pitt Rivers Museum. It’s a huge, well-curated record of human industry and creativity, and it struck me that every article in the well-stuffed cabinets had been made with a combination of somebody’s imagination and skill, eyes and hands.
And as I surveyed our house this weekend - which needs a proper clear-out - I wished that all of our family’s possessions were as neatly arranged and logically catalogued as those artefacts from all over the world. We have lived and brought our children up here for 25 years – 161 years of combined life-years, and I am sure we are not alone in having failed to sort out enough as we went along.
Christmas approaches and, particularly when the children were small, I would start to feel anxious at the amount of stuff that would enter the house, all of it needing managing – a home, perhaps a bag to carry it, cleaning, updating, possibly insuring and eventually of course disposing of.
It is tempting to demonstrate our love in physical gifts but can I urge you in the interests of the ethical and the sustainable to have a little think before you head to the website or shopping centre, so that you are making your choices consciously and thoughtfully?
Look carefully at what you are considering buying. Read the label. Look up the supplier or manufacturer online. What is it made of? Where was it made? Were the people who made it paid a decent wage and treated fairly? How far was it transported? How was it transported? Does the company selling it pay appropriate taxes in this country? If you buy online, does the seller pay their taxes? Do they treat their staff fairly? Do the delivery companies they choose pay and treat their staff fairly? Is next day delivery or a slightly cheaper price worth the cost for the planet or those people if any of the answers to your questions make you uncomfortable?
Think of the gift recipient. Will they love this thing? Use it? Keep it? Will it make them think of you warmly, or with irritation that you don’t even know they loathe that colour, or don’t collect duck-themed china ornaments anymore, or just don’t have storage space for such a huge thing? As an example, I was given a beautiful little scarf for my birthday; it is locally hand made, natural materials, uniquely designed and made, and my absolute favourite colour. The giver’s love and thoughtfulness ticked so many of my boxes for a perfect present that I can’t imagine ever parting with it.
You alone know what suits those close to you, but what about some alternatives to physical Christmas presents? Something useful will be welcome, especially if it shows you know their passions – art supplies, gardening tools, travel items, sports equipment. What about an experience? – fab local artist Gail Davis offers vouchers for her painting classes. Or vouchers for a local theatre – my sister regularly offers us a trip to the Watermill – or tickets for a sports match, or an event such as an RHS show? Club together with others for a stay away – with Canopy and Stars, or whatever appeals. Or how about a promise? A cherished present to us was dinner at a fancy restaurant at a date of our choice, but as we had small children at the time, our generous friends included a lift to and from the restaurant and an evening’s babysitting. Or promise your time - a day’s gardening, or a shared outing. Oxford is nice for a walking tour, a bus or boat trip, some colleges and museums to explore, a spot of lunch? You could make some wonderful memories together. And none of these needs more storage space than a note in the diary.
Or how about something charitable? From £5 at Oxfam you can donate to support Safe Education for Girls, Tackling Climate Change, Future Proof Farming and a raft of other choices. Or how about Toilet Twinning? Obviously my choices centre on sustainability and social justice, but there are plenty of options. I once celebrated friends’ diamond wedding with the sponsorship of a pair of goats, and another’s birthday with a donation to a charity helping musicians in a developing country close to their heart.
After all, what better way is there to express our love for our families, our friends, our local communities - and indeed the rest of humanity around the world both now and in the future - than thinking hard about both them AND the environment we will leave behind. Safety for them and their families and a worldwide ability to have a livelihood unharmed by the effects of climate change would be an amazing, memorable Christmas gift, and we can contribute to that if we try.
Have a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful and sustainable New Year.
Julia Hoaen