Dumplings for the Planet: Celebrating Chinese New Year Through Climate Action

To celebrate Chinese New Year 2026, we invited schools across Tāmaki Makaurau to save carbon by making dumplings. The year of the Fire Horse represents energy, courage and positive change, a perfect theme to connect cultural celebration and climate action in our schools and communities.

Students were encouraged to prepare dumplings either at school or at home with their whānau, and enter the details of their dumplings into our carbon calculator to see the impact of their choices. Where possible students were encouraged to use a garden to table approach using fresh vegetables from their school garden, paired with other low carbon ingredients.

By the end of the challenge students had rolled, folded, pinched and pleated their way to an incredible 1,328 dumplings. Around 350 of these were meat filled, with the rest packed full of low carbon ingredients like tofu, mushrooms and vegetables.

Using the carbon calculator, we were able to measure the impact of homemade vegetable dumplings compared with purchasing imported premade dumplings. The data showed that students collectively saved 145.42 kgCO₂e by creating low carbon handmade dumplings. To give you an idea of emissions saved, that is equivalent to what 169 mature native trees absorb in a year, or the emissions produced from driving a petrol car roughly 758 kilometres.

A huge thank you to everyone who got stuck in to make dumplings for the planet. Not only did these dumplings taste good, but they helped do good too. Ka rawe, whānau!