With the holiday shopping season in full swing, you might be wondering - is shopping online more environmentally-friendly than shopping at a store? 
The short(ish) answer is yes, it can be: 
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A Carnegie Melon study found "e-commerce delivery uses less primary energy and produces less CO2 emissions than traditional retailing…  Overall, e-commerce had about 30% lower energy consumption and CO2 emissions compared to traditional retail." When you purchase online, the item ships directly from a warehouse. When you purchase in a store, the item has already shipped from a warehouse plus you’re adding the additional cost of you getting to and from the store.
 
All products have to be shipped from the warehouse where they're stored after manufacture, and it can be quite a bit greener to cut the retail store -- and all the building, lighting, cooling, heating, and so forth that the store requires -- out of the equation. According to the Center for Energy & Climate Solutions, shipping two 20 pound packages by overnight air -- the most energy-intensive delivery mode -- still uses 40 percent less fuel than driving 20 miles round-trip to the mall or store or wherever you're going; ground shipping -- which is much more efficient than overnight air -- checks in at just one-tenth the energy used driving yourself.  
 
However, when you ask for items to be delivered quickly (think Amazon Prime 2-day Free Shipping), the online distributor loses the ability to consolidate deliveries. Rather than sorting items into trucks in the cheapest way, the company now has to focus on the fastest way. That means more trucks running on the roads or worse – air delivery. Airplanes emit far more carbon than other modes of transportation, so ultra-fast shipping guarantees you’re shooting more carbon directly into the sky.  
 
But what about all the packaging from online shopping? 
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Here’s the shocking thing: while we fret constantly about the excess packaging that comes to us from Amazon, some studies have shown it’s really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. "Although packaging accounts for 22% of the carbon dioxide emissions of an item purchased online, customer transportation accounts for 65% of emissions when buying the equivalent item at a retail store," according to the study, conducted by Carnegie Mellon's Green Design Institute. 
 

Essentially, while you’ve been fretting over the single bit of bubble wrap in your cardboard box, what you should have been worrying about is the car you hopped into to get to the store. The unseen costs of consumer transport are far higher than a bit of extra cardboard or recyclable plastic packaging. 

HOWEVER. The true answer, like most things in life, is more complex than that. While the answer is highly subjective based on your own location and needs, here are some factors that could change the "online shopping vs retail shopping" equation:

  • Many people do not drive alone, but go shopping with others, hence total purchases average more than four items per trip, thereby reducing miles driven per item.
  • Walking, biking and taking public transportation to get to the store has a smaller GHG footprint than driving
  • Shoppers often engage in other activities while at the mall, so miles traveled can’t be assigned only to shopping
  • A lot more goods purchased online get returned, which requires repackaging and shipping (33 percent compared with just 7 percent from stores)
  • You may value supporting local & small businesses, which may not have online ordering options. Shopping at small and local businesses puts more money back into the local economy through taxes. 

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Also, while some previous studies suggest that e-commerce is associated with lower carbon emissions than traditional retail, other researchers have warned of a “rebound effect,” which occurs when gains in efficiency merely stimulate new consumption. From a study in Delaware: “We found that the total number of vehicles miles travelled hasn’t decreased at all with the growth of online shopping,” says study leader Arde Faghri, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Delaware Center for Transportation. “This suggests that people are using the time they save by shopping on the internet to do other things like eating out at restaurants, going to the movies, or visiting friends" - all great things but could make up for the transportation GHGs. 

How to "Green" your Online Shopping:

  • Plan ahead to bundle shipments
  • Opt for slower ground shipping (instead of 2-day shipping)
  • Check out Amazon’s Frustration-Free Packaging service. The program sends your item without – essentially – a box around a box. The box is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials. Not every item on Amazon is available in the frustration-free packaging service (there are over 300,000 items), but it’s definitely a start.    
  • Recycle as much of the packaging as possible. Bubble wrap can be recycled at a number of locations such as Target, Walmart, Lowes, etc. – find the closest drop off to you here. Those air-filled plastic pillows can be dropped off at any location that collects low and high density polyethylene films (AKA plastic bags), or check with your city to see if you can put them into your recycle cart directly. Additionally, many UPS stores accept clean, foam packaging peanuts and bubble cushioning for reuse.
The Greenest Choice?
The greenest choice isn’t either one of these options - online shopping or in-person retail shopping – the most environmentally friendly choice is to make a concerted effort to reduce your shopping habit altogether, and shop secondhand wherever possible. This bears mentioning because although online shopping may be considered the greener of the two options, the ease and convenience of online shopping makes it so, so easy to shop at any hour day or night, with virtually no effort – don’t let the seductive glow of e-commerce reel you in! Question your purchases, explore whether you can rent or borrow the item, and take a few minutes to hit up Craigslist before heading to eBay or Amazon. Mother nature will thank you!
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