What is Santa’s Carbon Footprint?

Image by Ethical Ocean (used with permission)

What are the carbon emissions of Santa's operation?

Yes, someone actually took the time to calculate Santa’s impact on the atmosphere. While we all know he brings plenty of cheer, a new infographic by the environmentally-friendly shopping website Ethical Ocean shows his operation has a carbon footprint much bigger than a lump of coal.

The group estimates that Santa’s sleigh trip alone involves over 69 million metric tons of carbon emissions. They actually crunched the numbers on the height of Santa’s reindeer, the weight of Santa himself (300 pounds), and the payload of his sleigh (nearly 321,000 tons of toys, the top contributor). Over his 122 million-mile journey delivering cheer across the world, Santa’s guilty of emitting in one night the equivalent of the annual carbon footprint of the entire country of Qatar.

“It took about a month to complete.” Jonathan Fishbein, Chief Technology Officer for Ethical Ocean, told us. Which numbers were hardest to find? “They were all pretty difficult. It was very hard to research Santa’s actual carbon footprint. So we spent a lot of time trying to figure out each and every number.”

Why bother doing all of this in the first place? “We thought this would be a great infographic to release for the holiday season,” Fishbein says. “People have found it pretty entertaining. It’s bringing environmental issues out to people at a time when they might not be thinking of them.”

And without any further delay, a complete look at Santa’s carbon footprint: