Digital Retail: Economy’s Boon and Environment’s Bane
While 2020 was a year of unemployment and misery for some sectors, it was a record-breaking year for e-commerce, with the share prices of Amazon, eBay, Alibaba and more seeing a significant rise. However, as the majority of the world moves towards online shopping, it is important for us to confront its significant environmental impact, in order to make it the future.
E-commerce retailers are always quick to announce that online shopping is much more environmentally friendly than in-person shopping. This is indeed true in certain respects. A study done by Carnegie Mellon University showed that online shopping reduces the overall carbon footprint in the US by 30%, by using lesser land, by using electronic advertising to reduce paper trails, and repurposing products such as books, clothes (through eBay, Etsy, etc.) and thereby cutting down on fast fashion. Most importantly, it reduces the transport emissions by people travelling to the store for their every need, and saves 4-9 times the traffic it generates.
However, the picture is not as black-and-white as that. The online shipping boom has caused a massive carbon footprint from all the materials required for packing the shipped items, and the need for perfection causes an even greater use of items such as styrofoam, additional paper, etc. that is not always fully recycled. The growing number of returned items also double and triple the transportation emissions spent on one trip, and often mean that items have to be disposed of rather than resold.
Delivery trucks, on the other hand, cut down transportation emissions, as they prevent people traveling separately to the stores for shopping, by carrying the orders of multiple people at once. However, consumerism and the need for immediacy in online retail poses a hurdle. All online retailers offer free delivery and other incentives such as high-speed delivery that encourage frequent shopping. Since same-day delivery and one-day delivery slots make it difficult to combine deliveries to a single neighbourhood, the delivery truck will only be partially filled, driving longer distances with fewer stops, and often driving to the same location multiple times. This increases the distance travelled per item and thereby, the greenhouse gas emissions.
It is thus difficult to immediately conclude that online shopping is more sustainable than brick-and-mortar shopping. It all depends on the details, for example, physical shopping in the cycle-friendly Netherlands may be more green than even online shopping in car-dependent America. Nevertheless, technology does not move in reverse. The several conveniences offered by online shopping have made it clear that it is here to stay. This is combined with the fact that digital retail has made the economies of several developing countries much more profitable. The more relevant question thus becomes, how can online retailers become more sustainable, as we move towards a carbon-neutral world?
Some retailers have taken some steps towards making their practices more sustainable. Amazon has started packaging more items in bubble mailers, which are lighter and allow for more items to be placed within delivery vehicles (although sometimes the mixed bubble wrap and plastic block the recycling system and slow down the process), cutting back on overboxing, and allowing customers to choose their ‘Amazon Day’ to combine their frequent deliveries by bringing it all on the same day. This has eliminated 244,000 tons of packaging materials. The e-commerce giant also uses electric vehicles and recyclable packaging materials. After co-founding the Climate Pledge, Amazon unveiled Carbon-Neutral and Climate-Neutral Certifications and offered discounts on certified products. The company also made large investments in renewable energy in order to reach net-zero carbon by 2040.
These encouraging moves, however, have not pervaded Amazon’s operations to the extent that it can make a significant difference just yet. It is ultimately the customer that makes the final choice. Retailers and governments cannot push eco-friendly options onto customers, they can simply promote such options and try to educate the consumer of the consequences of their purchase.
One important suggestion in this direction is to introduce carbon labeling of products (print the amount of carbon emitted in producing a product on its packaging). As digital operations become more technologically advanced, it is indeed possible to calculate the amount of carbon emitted to deliver a product from the warehouse to the doorstep. By moving from corporate emissions to product carbon emissions, an individual is able to calculate their own carbon budget, and is empowered to do their bit for the environment, which will shift consumer behavior towards unconsciously thinking sustainably. New satellite and machine learning capabilities have brought carbon tracking to even small businesses, which tracks the carbon intensity at every step of the supply chain. If listing carbon intensity on the product were made a prerequisite in order to sell items on platforms such as Amazon, the impact could be immense.
The climate crisis demands the attention of all- governments, companies and consumers. It is said that every little bit done for the environment counts, but consumers cannot do their bit for the planet unless they are empowered to do so, by the right leadership.
By Roshni Suresh Babu