Is online shopping eco?
You might be surprised . . .
As Canadians enter the ring that is Boxing Week, and our inboxes and our eyeballs are pummelled with deals, I thought it’s a good moment to talk about online shopping, and sort the myths from the facts. 79% of Americans (and probably a similar number of Canadians) shop online. Let’s see if we can shop online better.
Is online shopping greener than traditional retail?
When your tiny Amazon order arrives in a giant box, or your Etsy purchase is swathed in layers of plastic, you might have a moment of garbage panic. The good news is, if we remain diligent, 90% of that cardboard ends up recycled. The other plastic packaging, not so much, and packaging is a big part of the impact of an online purchase. (I’ll have a nifty chart that illustrates that shortly.) But back to good news: according to a 2013 MIT study, online shopping can be better for the environment, since a thing isn’t being shipped to a store (which has a substantial energy footprint itself), then being picked up by you in your car (in most cases), which accounts for the biggest part of the footprint. (The same principle applies to driving to the store for research beforehand.) Delivery trucks take the most efficient route, and if one truck makes 50 carefully planned stops, that could remove 50 individual trips to the store. Of course, this assumes you’re not walking, biking, or taking transit, which tip the scales in favour of physical retail.
BUT, let’s talk about rush shipping . . .
As soon as you check that rush shipping box, you lose any online eco advantage. As the great Vox video I’ve included below points out, if you need urgent dish soap and the closest warehouse doesn’t have any, they’re flying it in from another warehouse. Emission-spewing trucks also commonly go out half full, because they need to get to you faster. We’re all very busy and important, but I bet even Beyoncé could wait on her dish soap.
. . . and returns.
Here’s a holiday Hallmark doesn’t make a card for: UPS calls January 2nd “National Returns Day.” And returns are major: they’ve gone up 95% in the last five years, and online shoppers return about 30% of purchases compare to 8% of in-store shoppers. 41% of us buy variations (in size, colour, etc.) that we fully intend to return. So here’s another way online shopping loses any green cred. For one thing, your rejected romper just wracked up a bunch of extra transport miles. Returns logistics provider Optoro says returns are responsible for 15 million metric tons of carbon annually.
But the bigger thing is how those returns are processed . . . or not processed. Only a pitiful 10% of returned items make it back on shelves. Some are sold off to a third-party liquidation company, but many major brands and retailers have decided it’s not worth it to process it at all, and your rejected wares are burned (as Burberry and H&M were both blasted for) or head straight to landfill. Five billion tons of returns head to landfill annually — “5,600 fully loaded Boeing 747s,” according to Optoro.
Here’s a cool chart from Dimitri Weideli’s 2013 MIT report I mentioned earlier. Cybernaut = his cute term for an online shopper. Cybernaut impatient = online shopper who selects rush shipping.
So what can we do?
Reconsider what you need shipped. Do you really need your deodorant delivered? Or can you buy it when you get groceries?
Choose a brand you know won’t landfill: Patagonia not only repairs its merchandise, but will buy back your clothes and resell them in its Worn Wear stores online and IRL. How cool is that? (It’s a cheaper and more eco-friendly option for what my colleague’s mom calls “Patagucci.”) Third Love washes returned bras and donates them to women in need. A certain online monopoly named for an endangered rainforest? Not so much.
Bundle your orders and say goodbye to one-click shopping. Keep things that aren’t urgent in your cart for a while, rather than ordering the minute the whim strikes.
Choose slower shipping. Your aromatherapy diffuser probably isn’t an emergency.
Make returns in store, if possible, for a better chance they’re not destined for a trash fire or eternity in the landfill. Or if you’re in the U.S., use return drop off hubs like Happy Returns when you can, so shipments are consolidated. If you’re driving, try to do all your holiday returns in one trip.
When you can do it without extra driving, shop local. (This, however, is often not an option for plus-sized clothing — a category that’s wildly underserved by bricks and mortar retailers — or for those who live in remote communities.) Remember that there are other advantages to shopping near you, especially at locally owned businesses, such as more money staying in your community ($68 stays per $100 spent vs. $43 out of $100 for big box retailers). Remember: local businesses —> local taxes —> roads, transit, and other marvels of civilization.
Unsubscribe from promotional newsletters, which bring you one step closer to online impulse buys. Unsubscribing might give you bargain FOMO, but as someone who once feared that, trust me, it’ll be great. Plus, our self-restraint is finite: If you’re trying to eat healthy, it’s way easier not to keep a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer.
But the best option of all: live without or buy secondhand. Shopping is depleting natural resources (which we’re running low on) to make more material resources (which are bursting out of our closets, storage lockers, and thrift stores). So when your inbox is full of 50% off deals, remember that there’s no discounting the environmental cost of making something new. Plus, not buying means 100% savings, which can really help the bottom line on that January credit card bill.
For the busiest people, TL;DR:
Online shopping can be more environmentally friendly than bricks and mortar shopping if you bundle your order, don’t choose express shipping, and only order what you’re not likely to return . . .
. . . because a lot of those returns won’t get reprocessed — they’ll just get sent straight to landfill.
Driving has the biggest impact on shopping’s carbon footprint, so whenever possible, walk, cycle, take transit, or combine errands.
Learn more to level up:
Listen:
The Current has a trip with a Montreal dumpster diver and an interview with environmental journalist Adria Vasil talking about returns (12 minutes)
Read:
This isn’t directly related, but right now powerhouse nonprofit evaluator GiveWell is giving away a ebook or audiobook version of a book that had a big impact on me: Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save. It might just give you some ideas about good ways to use money you save by bypassing some end-of-year sales.
Subscribe to Five Minutes for the Planet for 75% off! Just kidding, subscribing is free! But if you see value in these dispatches, please do subscribe and share with others — that’s how our everyday changes get exponential.