Sustainable & Eco-Friendly Christmas Tree Guide 2025

Are you wondering what the most sustainable and eco-friendly Christmas tree option is? Real or fake? Let me explain all.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a Christmas tree. But what about the environmental cost?

The British Christmas Tree Growers Association (BCTGA) estimates that around 7 million real trees are bought each year by UK households. Meanwhile, around 3.5 million artificial trees are bought each year by British shoppers. It’s a lot of trees – real or plastic.

If you’re wondering what the most sustainable or eco-friendly Christmas tree option is, then it definitely feels like a puzzle.

Should you opt for an artificial tree that you can retrieve from the loft every year? Or is the most environmentally friendly to opt for a newly felled tree that ends up discarded in the New Year? It’s certainly an eco-friendly riddle wrapped in an enigma. Or is it?

Before you decide to shun Christmas trees altogether, let’s have a look at what the most sustainable and eco-friendly Christmas trees are. I’ve also included my top care and shopping tips for every option.

Guide To Sustainable And Eco-Friendly Christmas Trees

Ready to take on this eco-friendly challenge? Here are the most sustainable options, in order:

Potted Trees

The most environmentally friendly option is to opt for a potted Christmas tree. This is provided that you have outdoor space in which to grow it for the rest of the year. This is a tree for life, not just for Christmas, after all.

You can buy potted trees easily from most garden centres. For a smaller carbon footprint, look for UK-grown varieties, like Blue Spruce or Nordman.

Once Christmas is done, simply pop it in your garden in its pot. The following year, you can bring it back into your house and decorate it, before putting it back in the garden again once Christmas is over.

Potted trees tend to be small – around 3 to 4 ft when you first receive them. This makes this option ideal if you have a small house or want to use it as an additional tree until it grows in size.

It can also be quite a budget-friendly option, as potted trees tend to be less pricey than real trees, and it saves you from buying a real tree each year.

Pre-Christmas Care

I know from experience that potted trees need a little bit of care to stay looking their best year after year.

We had a potted Christmas tree quite a few years ago. While it was great and didn’t drop its needles as much as cut trees do, we kept ours indoors for too long. I think it was indoors for a month. As such, it got a shock from going from a centrally heated house to an exposed Scottish garden! The poor thing took a couple of years to recover from this temperature shock!

From my experience, I would say that a potted tree is a good, eco-friendly Christmas tree option if you don’t put your tree up too early and can acclimatise it slowly to life outdoors again.

With this in mind, the very start of December is much too early to bring a potted tree inside. Wait until a week or two before Christmas, so that it isn’t inside for too long.

To keep your potted tree looking its best, when it’s indoors, keep it away from radiators or fires. And do make sure the soil is kept moist (but not waterlogged).

Post-Christmas Care

Once you’ve taken the decorations down after Christmas, for the next few weeks, pop your tree outdoors during the day. At night, bring it back indoors. A cool spot in your house is ideal. Keep it away from radiators or heat sources. After a few weeks, your tree should have hardened off and can handle cold weather, so it’s good to stay out in the garden until next Christmas.

At some point, you will need to re-pot your tree – probably after around 2 to 3 years. At this point, you can simply transfer it to a bigger pot. You can then continue to bring it indoors until it gets too big for you to carry.

When your tree gets too big, you can plant it in your garden as a permanent reminder of all of the great Christmases you’ve had. Our tree is now planted in the ground in our garden, flourishing. I smile every time I look at it and think of one of our first Christmases together as a couple. Alternatively, a local growing group might be able to plant it.

Rent a Christmas Tree

Another more sustainable option is to rent a Christmas tree. This is ideal if you don’t have a garden, don’t want the hassle of potting and re-potting a tree, or want a larger tree.

Tree rental companies will deliver a potted tree to your door on a date that you specify. They’ll then collect it from you at the end of the festive period. They’ll then put it back outside and care for it, ready to be delivered to someone the following Christmas.

Once trees grow to be too big to rent, they are typically planted out in forests. This makes potted trees a great eco-friendly Christmas tree option. Tree-mendous stuff!

There are quite a few companies out there that rent sustainable Christmas trees. Most operate locally, rather than nationwide, so it’s best to search on the internet for one that serves your local area.

Real Trees

If potted trees or tree rental isn’t for you, then the next most sustainable option is to opt for a real tree. The Carbon Trust has found that real Christmas trees have a smaller carbon footprint compared to artificial trees.

According to the Trust, a 2-metre-high artificial Christmas tree made from plastic has a carbon footprint of around 40kg of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Meanwhile, a two-metre real Christmas tree that is properly disposed of after its use has a carbon footprint of around 3.5kg of CO₂.

Properly disposed of in this sense means burning it on a bonfire, planting it in your garden (if it has roots), or having it chipped by your local Council. Don’t put it in landfil, though. A tree disposed of in landfill has a much carbon footprint of around 16kg of CO₂.

What this shows is that real trees are better for the environment than fake ones. Especially so when you consider that real trees absorb carbon dioxide during their growth period, compared to fake ones that burn fossil fuels during their production.

Where to Buy A Sustainable Real Christmas Tree

If you’re planning to get a real tree this festive season, consider choosing a locally-grown one instead of an imported tree with a larger carbon footprint.

If you are in Scotland, then without a doubt, the best place to purchase a real tree is from Caring Christmas Trees. This is part of the Bethany Trust charity. All of its trees are sustainably grown in Scotland by local growers. What’s more, the money raised helps homeless and vulnerable people in Scotland.

If you’re in England, then the Forestry Commission has Christmas tree sales centres dotted around the country. Here you can buy a sustainably grown, local, and eco-friendly Christmas tree. All profits are reinvested back into the Forestry Commission’s work on maintaining forests for future generations.

Caring For Your Christmas Tree

To keep your tree in tip-top condition all throughout the festive season, then it’s best to buy a real Christmas tree when you want to put your tree up. Leaving it sitting in your house until you are ready to put it up can be a recipe for a dehydrated tree-based disaster.

When you bring your Christmas tree home, there are a few steps you can take to help avoid it dropping all its needles before the big day.

First, it’s a good idea to saw a couple of centimetres off the base of the tree to open up the pores of your tree.

This is necessary, as when trees are cut, sap oozes out of the cut area. If the tree isn’t put directly into water, this sap hardens, creating a water-resistant seal within about 5 hours of the tree being cut. This seal prevents the tree from absorbing much water and could shorten your tree’s lifespan if you don’t saw the base.

Once you’ve cut a bit off your tree, you’ll need to think about placement. The best place for a real Christmas tree is away from direct heat sources, such as a radiator or fire, as these will dry your tree out too quickly.

Once you’ve found the perfect spot, away from direct heat, mount your tree in a water-holding stand filled with water. And treat it like a houseplant to keep it happy. It’s best to top up the container with water every day, as trees as thirsty things.

Disposing Of Your Tree Correctly

Once Christmas is over, trees can be shredded and composted, or used in your wood burner (if you have one).

If you opt to burn your wood, leave the wood to season for as long as you can. This is because burning green or unseasoned wood is not good in terms of particulate emissions. If you can, leave at least a year between cutting and burning. Doing so will allow the wood to properly season.

Alternatively, most councils offer a kerbside recycling scheme, where they will collect your tree in early January. They then shred them into chippings, which are typically used in parks. Contact your local council for advice on tree recycling in your area.

Alternatively, a rooted tree can be planted in your garden. If you don’t have space, ask around. A local community growing group may have space for your tree.

Try my guide to Christmas tree recycling for more ideas. I’ve found that some environmental groups take them for flood prevention schemes, so this is a great way for your tree to do good long after the festive period has ended.

Artificial Christmas Trees

Artificial trees can still be an eco-friendly option. It just depends on how you buy them.

As I mentioned, a fake tree has a carbon footprint of around 40kg of CO₂. When we compare that to a real tree, disposed of properly, a fake tree would need to be used for at least 10 years to be greener than a real tree.

Why is the carbon footprint of an artificial tree so high? As well as being made from carbon-intensive fossil fuels, the majority of artificial trees are imported from further away, mainly from China, contributing to their carbon footprint.

This isn’t to say that all fake trees are bad for the environment. If you can commit to keeping and using the tree for at least ten years, then it will be less carbon-intensive than a real tree.

Plus, there’s the financial sustainability side of things. Buying a real Christmas tree every year can be expensive. It can be more affordable to shell out a one-off cost for an artificial tree that you are going to use for years to come.

What to Consider When Buying An Artificial Christmas Tree

If you do choose to buy a fake tree, then there are a few steps you can take to make sure your tree is one that you reach for from the loft year after year.

First up, shop preloved if you can. Buying a secondhand tree via eBay or Facebook Marketplace would make for the most eco-friendly and affordable way of buying a fake Christmas tree.

Next, buy the best you can afford in a classic tree shape in green. This style won’t date, unlike some of the more modern fake Christmas tree styles. I’d also recommend buying one without built-in lights, as they are difficult to fix if they break. Artificial trees can’t be recycled, so the longer it can last the better.

Storage is also key. I’d recommend investing in a sturdy box so that your tree doesn’t get damaged in storage. If you keep it in a loft or shed, keep it away from a window so that sunlight doesn’t discolour the branches.

We personally have a fake 6ft Christmas tree that we bought several years ago secondhand on eBay. I’m in no hurry to replace it. We also have a smaller fake tree that my mum and dad bought in the 1970s. I love getting it out of the loft every year. It really makes me smile and remember great Christmas memories from years and decades gone by.

More Sustainable Christmas Ideas

Now you’re up to speed on eco-friendly Christmas trees, let’s deck the halls sustainably this Christmas time!

And if you are after more ideas on how to have a greener Christmas, I have heaps of articles to help you. Some of my favourites include:

• My ultimate guide to having an eco-friendly Christmas – packed full of resources for every aspect of Christmas – from decorations, cards, and wrapping paper, to sustainable gift ideas and more.
• If you’re looking to decorate your tree sustainably, try these easy zero-waste Christmas decorations to make.
• And if you’re not feeling crafty, try my guide to eco-friendly and ethical Christmas decorations for my sustainable top picks.