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For many shopping centres, municipalities, and campuses, holiday decor is about more than just the sparkle. It’s also about showing students, residents, and visitors that you incorporate elements of sustainability into your holiday displays.
Sustainable holiday displays that are well planned can lower energy usage and costs, minimize maintenance, and still deliver that festive glow - that wow factor that people have come to expect.
More properties are focusing on ESG commitments and public accountability, and this means that your holiday program needs to reflect this. This can be done by choosing eco-friendly Christmas decorations, smarter controls, and materials with long lifespans - allowing everyone to create festive displays while adhering to sustainable principles.
Traditional displays that use incandescent bulbs look charming, but it requires constant upkeep and uses an unreal amount of power. More modern energy-efficient Christmas displays use durable structures, better wiring, and much more efficient LED light bulbs, thus increasing reliability while reducing energy usage.
By upgrading to low-energy holiday lighting solutions, you can reduce kWh consumption and utility costs across streetscapes, plazas, and parking areas, minimize ladder and bucket truck visits through longer lamp life and safer, low-voltage systems, and Support ESG and climate goals by lowering emissions associated with your seasonal program.
When you combine efficient LED holiday lighting with strong materials and commercial-grade trees and foliage, those disposable decor pieces become long-term infrastructure investments. Not only does this reduce waste, but also reduces expenditures, with the result being more money to put back into next year’s display.
A sustainable holiday program absolutely has to use LED lights. By converting to LED holiday lighting, you can reduce energy consumption by anywhere from 70% to 90% compared to incandescent bulb options - plus they also have much longer lifespans.
For example, using Advantage LED Pole Mounts turns basic streets into cohesive and branded gateways without running up the power bill. LED pole mount Christmas displays are ideal as they are highly visible but don;t consume much wattage - delivering great bang for your buck.
You can complement these with overhead Drape Lighting and Market Lights in plazas, gathering areas, and walkways.
Linear and festoon-style systems make for ideal low-energy holiday lighting solutions because they use efficient LED lamps in scalable runs, they create warm, inviting ambience with calculated spacing instead of over-lighting, and Integrate easily with dimmers, timers, and sensors for tighter holiday lighting ROI.
The simple fact is that converting to LED is rarely an added cost, but rather a reallocation of your budget into assets that last longer, look better, and consume less energy.
Once you have your energy-efficient light fixtures set up, the next best way to reduce energy consumption is to use timers and smart holiday lighting controls to control when and how long they run for. This makes it easy to turn the lights on and off as needed while keeping the overall experience intact.
Simple yet well-calibrated programmable holiday timers can turn displays on only after dusk, based on actual local sunset times, shut everything down automatically at off-peak hours, such as late night or early morning, and stagger start-up across zones to avoid power spikes and extend component life.
Although Classic Displays currently does not sell smart controls, all lights and holiday displays are compatible with smart timers and controls, allowing you to set up a beautiful yet energy-efficient holiday display.
For example, you can combine daylight or motion sensors with various Classic Displays pieces to get the best of both worlds. For instance, for campus walkways, you could use Drape Lighting that dims to a low level after closing hours and just turns on when motion is detected. Another example is a parking garage that has its displays light up only during shopping hours - indicating that the area is open for business.
A great idea on this front is to group the displays into zones, such as plazas, main streets, parks, and gateway features. This allows you to design individual lighting schedules for each zone, thus keeping the overall atmosphere intact while reducing unnecessary energy expenditures.
Creating a sustainable holiday display also has to do with how you treat what you currently own. For instance, although some fibreglass displays may look like they’ve seen better days, they likely have years of life left in them, especially if they are properly refurbished.
To this end, Classic Displays offers holiday display refurbishment programs and repair services to help you strip and re-finish tired pieces with new paint systems and coatings, replace outdated incandescent strings with modern LED holiday lighting, and re-theme existing trees & foliage with updated colours, ornaments, and toppers.
Simple yet thoughtful Christmas decor maintenance helps keep signature items like the Tabora Walk-Through Present Box and other walk-through pieces, centre-court pieces, and photo-ops in rotation and looking great - instead of taking up space in a landfill.
This is the exact kind of sustainable display lifecycle management that you need to engage in, because it helps lower capital expenditure while promoting sustainability - and all just by extending the life of current displays instead of replacing them at the first sign of wear or trouble.
By combining refurbished fibreglass displays, refreshed foliage and trees, and new LED Pole Mounts, you can give your holiday program a new and updated look while using less energy and fewer raw materials.
Important to note is that your efforts to save energy and be more sustainable can only be used as a reputational asset if people know about it. This means that you need to create clear and friendly messaging about your sustainable holiday displays and how they benefit both the community and the environment.
Simple public sustainability signage can be easily integrated into entry features, photo-op areas, and information kiosks.
For example
For municipal trams, this public-facing communication supports broader ESG-focused holiday initiatives. It displays that your decisions around energy-efficient Christmas displays aren’t just a cost-cutting exercise, but rather a part of a bigger sustainability initiative.
Furthermore, properties can also use website banners, social media, and QR codes on signage to link to sites that explain how trees and foliage, LED holiday lighting, and holiday display refurbishment contribute to overarching and long-term environmental goals.
A great example of a greener and more impactful holiday program comes from the town of Kingsville’s (Ontario) work with Classic Displays on the Kingsville BIA pole displays. The municipality wanted a warm, glowing, and cinematic streetscape for the holidays while aligning with their goals for sustainable holiday displays.
By working with Classic Displays, the Kingsville team was able to easily transition to efficient LED holiday lighting, complete with custom toppers designed around Kingsville’s historic and rustic architecture.
First, during the initial consultation, the Classic Displays team took the time to familiarize themselves with the BIA’s mission and vision, followed by effective design suggestions that took the concept to the next level. The team even went on-site to measure every streetlamp to make sure that the LED pole mount Christmas displays fit perfectly.
Yes, energy savings were a given here, but there’s more to it than that. The custom toppers and coordinated energy-efficient Christmas displays generated over 300 positive comments on social media platforms, along with a multitude of emails and in-person feedback from both visitors and locals.
The locals described Kingsville as having a “Hallmark movie feel” thanks to the cohesive aesthetic and inviting glow created by the Classic Displays Team. Sue Rice, part of Economic Development and Tourism for Kingsville, noted, the attention to detail, craftsmanship, and customer service made the entire experience “nothing short of outstanding.”
Let’s not overlook how each display uses only 15.5 watts of energy, with each display lasting up to five Christmas seasons - making Classic Displays’ efforts in Kingsville highly successful.
The great part is that creating a greener holiday program doesn’t mean having to choose between responsibility and beauty. Successful holiday decor design starts with a clear visual concept, followed by the right tools to deliver it effectively and efficiently.
Energy-conscious Christmas installations focus on placing lighting where it will be appreciated the most, such as at photo-op zones, high-traffic pedestrian paths, and entries. Designing focal points that feel intentional, memorable, and polished produce a much greater effect than simply trying to illuminate every surface.
A greener and more sustainable holiday program is a visible statement about the values that your community holds dear - sustainability. Investing in sustainable holiday displays, efficient LED lighting, and eco-friendly Christmas decor built to last, you can show everyone that both environmental stewardship and celebration can go hand in hand.
With Classic Displays, you can combine Drape Lighting, Market Lights, LED pole mounts, and premium materials to create a sustainable and beautiful Christmas landscape. When it’s time for some TLC, Classic Displays’ repair and refurbishment services can take decor that looks worn down and transform it into something brand new.
Connect with Classic Displays to design a holiday program around long-term sustainable display lifecycle management and low-energy holiday lighting solutions.
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