What Does a Sustainable Black Friday Look Like? 🌳⚡
🌱 Wild
Black Friday sales drive a big surge in consumption and waste. It is estimated that Black Friday creates an extra 1.5 million tonnes of waste in the UK, with a large share coming from packaging and short-lived products.
Many items bought during big sales are low value and quickly discarded. Some analyses suggest as much as 80 percent of Black Friday purchases can end up incinerated, poorly recycled, or in landfill.
That waste translates into carbon emissions, resource use and social cost across supply chains. Framing Black Friday as an opportunity for intentional buying helps reduce pressure on resources and lowers the chance that purchases become waste quickly.
How Wild makes Black Friday sustainable .
Wild pairs promotional moments with measurable climate action. Wild works with ON A MISSION to fund tree planting projects, one sale = one tree planted, ensuring sales do more than simply move stock!
Planting trees is one part of the approach. Trees help restore habitats, protect coastlines and capture carbon, while project partners ensure local community benefits. ON A MISSION runs several restoration projects, including a mangrove programme that plants 100,000 native trees to protect Brazil’s coastal ecosystems.
Wild also emphasises avoidance as well as offsetting. That means designing products to reduce single use plastic, offering refillable formats and avoiding unnecessary packaging so fewer emissions are created in the first place. Wild reports planting hundreds of thousands of trees as part of its ongoing impact work.
In the words of Wild’s founder, “Wild exists to close the consumer gap by delivering everyday personal care products in more sustainable packaging.” This kind of mission-driven approach shows how a brand can combine product design with verified climate projects.
Wild's Statement on Black Friday
Nobody needs a million deodorants, however great you wanna smell. So if you’ve already got a couple – one for home, one for the gym – then please don’t feel the need to buy even more!
Perhaps you could give Wild to friends or family (we’re not implying they pong...)? Or choose from our range of Limited Edition scents to add a little variety to your routine.
At Wild, we’re on a mission to end single-use plastic. We don’t want Wild to become single-use plastic...
Practical Sustainable Shopping Ideas for Black Friday
• Buy less and choose quality. Prioritise items that last longer and can be repaired. Choosing durable products reduces the chance of fast disposal and overall lifetime impact.
• Pick plastic free refills. Refillable formats cut single use plastic and lower packaging waste compared with one use equivalents.
• Buy from certified B Corps or verified sustainability labels. Certification gives extra assurance a brand has third party standards for social and environmental performance.
• Choose repaired or refurbished over new when it fits. Refurbished electronics and repaired items reduce demand for raw materials and the emissions from new manufacturing.
• Donate instead of impulse buying. If you are tempted by a bargain, consider whether that money is better used to replace a worn item or to give to a charity instead.
• Each of these choices is small on its own. Together they reduce the material and carbon footprint of Black Friday and shift the cultural idea of a sale from accumulation to smarter consumption.
Call to Action
Black Friday can be kinder to the planet when customers choose better products and brands put climate action at the heart of promotions. If you want a practical alternative this year, consider shopping with brands that design out single use plastic and back measurable restoration projects. Wild’s Black Friday activity pairs product offers with tree planting, so purchases directly fund verified restoration work.
Ready to make a different choice this Black Friday? Support refillable, plastic free products and look for offers that fund real reforestation. Small changes at checkout add up to large benefits for nature.
Sources
- BusinessWaste, "Black Friday Waste Statistics", published 18 Nov 2024. Business Waste
- WasteManaged, "Is Black Friday Bad For The Environment?", (analysis on waste rates).
- Population Matters, "Black Friday: Waste or Want?", 23 Nov 2023. Population Matters
- ON A MISSION project pages describing mangrove and other restoration projects.
