Rooted’s purpose is to enable a more eco-friendly Christmas with living trees that are green for life… not just for Christmas

I wanted to provide a sustainable solution that gives you a beautiful smelling pine Christmas tree in your home for the festive period, without the waste and carbon impact of cut trees.   

I love trees and wanted to support trees to do their thing of absorbing water and CO2 and giving us back cleaner air year after year.  I hate the aftermath of Christmas generally, but what doesn’t help the doom and gloom is all those dying cut Christmas trees discard on the roadside or at the tip with their needles dropping and their branches browning. It feels such a waste of a good tree and certainly won’t help us with our climate challenges and our local battle with flooding.

So that’s why, I turned my two acre field, which was home to my neighbours grazing sheep into an eco Christmas tree farm with living, pot grown Norway Spruces to serve the community of Calderdale.  The sheep weren’t too happy but I hope you appreciate the end result and try one of our pot grown Christmas trees this year.  

Thank you.

Sara Tomkins

Founder of Rooted

Email: Sara@rooted-christmastrees.com

Green for life not just for Christmas

If you are on a mission to be greener and want a more eco-friendly Christmas then why not hire a Christmas tree for a happier and greener new year?

You may not know that the transportation and disposing of cut trees has a great impact on the planet. The Carbon Trust says a 2m-tall cut Christmas tree that ends up in landfill has a carbon footprint of 16kg. A recycled cut tree produces about 3.5kg and a 2m-tall artificial tree has a carbon footprint of about 40kg.

The government estimates that the nation’s 8m dumped Christmas trees generate 160,000 tonnes of waste every year. Not only is this a tremendous waste of resources, but the cost to local councils of disposal is eye-watering – an estimated £14 million to send faded firs and sad spruces to landfill.  Plus, as they rot down, the trees release harmful greenhouse gases.

Switching to a tree-borrowing service is far kinder to the planet. 

Rooted’s model is that you choose a tree, it will be delivered to you, you enjoy it for the festive period, then it will be collected – where it can carrying on growing, ready to be used again in next year’s celebrations.  

You can even adopt the same tree year after year.  

Pot grown trees drink up the rain, slowing the flow for our rivers and absorbing CO2 so cleaning our air all year round, they also don’t add to our waste and help lower our carbon footprint. Growing Christmas trees in pots also reduce transport costs, is less land intensive and provides a constant supply of spruces. And once the tree out grows its pot (10-12 years or so), we plant them across the Calder Valley as part of natural flood management, so Rooted trees are green for life.

“We believe in forever trees and our sustainable Christmas trees are truly local trees for local people resulting in happy trees for the happy valley.” Sara Tomkins, founder of Rooted-living Christmas trees

Rooted rented 150 trees in 2020, 200 in 2021 & 2022, with an ambition to support 2030+ recycled trees by 2030.  The pot grown Norway Spruce Christmas trees are grown from saplings in Yorkshire and then nurtured from 1 foot up to 8 foot tall.  They smell like Christmas, have that perfect Christmas tree shape and because they are living they don’t shed their needles like cut trees when well watered.

Calderdale Council make a tremendous effort to recycle dying trees after Christmas but the waste is still a problem.

“By hiring a tree and letting it live on, we can reduce waste and support the Calder Valley’s flood management schemes and improve our air quality.  I think Rooted is a kind business idea for our community that represents all that is great about living in the Calder Valley. As a flood warden and after witnessing the devastation floods in our area causes I hope people will switch to hiring a tree rather than buying a cut tree this year so we can build a better, cleaner and greener community for our children’s future.” Cllr Scott Patient, lead member for Climate Change & Resilience at Calderdale Council.

In a world where we all need to do more for the planet, adopting a pot grown tree that can be green for life not just for Christmas, feels like the spirit of Calderdale’s Christmas future.