What a wonderful world when we can shop online and get free two-day shipping.
What could be better?
From a climate perspective, perhaps slower is better.
More than thirty years of engineering have made passenger cars highly efficient and clean burning. That trip to the local store might have a smaller footprint than that uber-delivery to your door. Diesel trucks are lightly regulated and impact air quality more.
Experts at the University of California say today’s competition to get it to you fastest is eroding the logistical progress they had made in consolidating their shipments.
Grist explains some of the complexities of shipping that determine the carbon-intensively of your shipping choice. All of those individual shipping boxes have also been implicated for their impacts.
MIT’s 2013 analysis concludes that you’ll impact the planet least if you shop completely online, without going to the store to field test your purchase.
But now there is the added variable of free two-day shipping? Just because it is free you don’t have to choose it, according to Miguel Jaller, of the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California Davis. Consolidate your own purchases and choose a slower delivery option — that gives shippers the best chance of consolidating their shipments. Happy Holidays!