To tree I do wed. How green was the royal wedding?

Henry Rummins

03 May 2011

The wedding went off without a glitch and Kate - or rather the Duchess of Cambridge - is now an official member of the royal family.

Along with millions around the world I marvelled at the fashion, gawped at the Royal Air Force fly-past and beamed as the happy couple roared into the distance in their Aston Martin.

But now the bunting has come down and the street parties are officially over, back in the office I've been wondering about more sobering matters - the event's carbon footprint.

There have been a few attempts to estimate the environmental impact of the royal wedding - with some putting the impact as high as 12 times the annual emissions of Buckingham Palace. Inviting guests from across the world also took its toll, with a quarter of the guests flying in to witness the historic event.

Whilst the guests to my own royal wedding party travelled by much greener means - half of them cycled - I have to confess I couldn't resist the full range of Union Jack napkins, paper plates, table cloths and balloons.

The general consensus seems to be that Kate and Wills did attempt to green their wedding day - from locally-sourced and organic canapés to flowers grown on royal estates. Even the trees in Westminster Abbey - the most visible, and literal, symbol of greening the wedding - were from Highgrove, the Prince of Wales' estate.

But what struck me most was the Bishop of London's address to the royal couple, and the world, when he said:

"We stand looking forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely the power that has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge, but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for the Earth and for one another."

Behind all the pomp, ceremony and celebrity, this was for me the most awe-inspiring message of all.

Henry Rummins, Communications & Media team