More and more people are buying products online. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend only increased. Online retail sales in 2020 increased with 32,4% compared to 2019 [1]. Statista estimated that in 2021, more than 2.1 billion people worldwide are shopping online [2]. E-commerce has a lot of advantages for both consumers and retailers. Retailers can reach more consumers and those consumers have the convenience of ordering products without leaving their homes. But how does online shopping affect the environment?
If you look at the basic principles, online shopping is more environmentally friendly than buying products in a store. The main reason for this is that individuals don’t have to drive to stores to get their products [3], but that they are being delivered by vans which can optimize their routes for other customers. Next to that, less physical stores also mean less energy needed to power those buildings.
However, online shopping is not all rainbows and sunshine. The last years, retailers have focused on improving their last-mile delivery – the journey from the store or distribution center to the customer. Free shipping or same day delivery are being offered by more and more retailers nowadays. This rat race to make online shopping as convenient as possible, has a negative environmental impact. Customers order fewer items per online transaction leading to more shipment movements. Also, multi-item orders are often split because they have to be shipped from multiple stores or distribution centers and shipping via e-commerce requires additional packing [3]. Returns make things even worse. More than 30% of products bought online are returned, compared to just 9% in physical stores [4]. This new style of shopping not only leads to more parcels that need to be shipped back, but it also causes unnecessary waste of unused and undamaged products. Reports show that over 25% of returns are destroyed immediately, especially within the clothing industry [5]. Amazon destroys millions of items in their UK warehouses each year [6]. It’s often cheaper for companies to just destroy the returns instead of sorting out what’s wrong and repacking them, but the environment is paying the price.
Of course, you can still order products online. And if you keep some simple things in mind you can still have a smaller environmental impact compared to physical shopping. Below you can find some of these remarks, but feel free to add additional ones in the comments!
- If you can buy your product in a physical store which you can reach walking or cycling, just go to the store.
- If you’re unsure if the size is correct or if you want to keep the product, go to a physical store and find out.
- Try to bundle your (future) purchases in one order.
References
- [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/251666/number-of-digital-buyers-worldwide/
- [2] https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/coronavirus-impact-online-retail/
- [3] https://eco-age.com/resources/online-shopping-impact-on-environment/
- [4] https://www.invespcro.com/blog/ecommerce-product-return-rate-statistics/
- [5] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/10/growing-online-sales-means-more-returns-and-trash-for-landfills.html
- [6] https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/amazon-destroying-millions-of-items-of-unsold-stock-in-one-of-its-uk-warehouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds
Amazing example Bram vd Water! For me, some facts were completely new and I got upset with all these numbers. Indeed, buying traits are changing constantly and with Covid-19 everything went online. On the one hand, there are some benefits as no driving to the stores (less emissions), less energy consumed etc. On the other hand, thousands of waste in cases of return and delivery. However, maybe it’s not a problem of consumers rather the manufacturers and local authorities have to speak up and take the responsibility, providing with a good infrastructure for recycling (special drop off points, incentives, planned clean-ups etc). Of course, consumers is a critical part of the process but still, more initiatives may raise awareness and actual recycle.
How often are you ordering online?
Thanks for responding Yuliya! I don’t think we can put the responsibility at the manufacturers, because their main goal is to make profits. For instance, consumers will probably shift to other competitors with free shipment if that company tries to reduce online packages with a shipment fee. Authorities can step in at those cases and make sure rules supporting sustainability apply to all manufacturers.
I try to order as less as possible online, especially with clothes. If I can’t buy it at a store that’s within 20 minutes from my home by bicycle, I’ll order it online.
Really interesting blog, really enjoyed it and learned a lot of things! I didn’t even know that returns were being destroyed and definitely didn’t know that up to 30% of products were returned, that is huge. I don’t often buy online, but now I will consider the different environmental impacts of it. Though it would be interesting to do a deep comparaison of the actual environmental impact of shopping online and offline, I doubt there is a lot of difference. Most often than not when you buy offline you don’t have the packaging so you have less waste, but as mentionned online shopping generates less emissions. In the end I believe that environmental wise there is not a lot of difference between both. Also, do you think that in the future a possible solution for online ordres would be to put regulations when it comes to destroying returns, so as to have less waste ?
Thanks for your comment Manon! I agree with you it depends per order if it’s better for the environment. I think if you order online once in a while, it’s not a problem. But ordering many products just to have a look at them or fit them at home and then sending the majority back is really unsustainable because of the extra emissions and waste it produces.
I don’t know if we could put regulations on destroying items, since they’re the company’s products so they can decide what to do with it. I believe that putting regulations on free shipment or free delivery that applies to all retailers is a better way to order in a more sustainable way.
This is a very interesting and relevant post! As primarily an online consumer myself, it is eye opening that so many of these online products are not environmentally friendly at all. I have notice when ordering from Amazon especially, that the smallest product will have excessive packaging. Considering that both online and in person shopping can have environmental impacts, the onus should be primarily on the companies to fix up their act and lower their environmental footprint. I believe that companies are already making headway in the right direction, however it seems to be taking longer for the bigger companies such as Amazon to take these steps.
Unfortunately it is not uncommon that too many people rather order too much, only to end up sending items back which are not to their liking. Online clothes retailers are especially impacted by this, as customers order multiple sizes of the same clothing item. Most retailers are trying to tackle this issue by offering crowdsourced size charts to offer advice to prospective customers. Some retailers even ask a small fee for returns, in an attempt to make people more concious of their purchasing decisions.
It is indeed very worrying to see that a lot of corporations destroy their merchandise if it is cheaper for them to destroy the returned items. Do you believe that it is the responsibility of the consumer to make more concious decisions, or do you think that it is the responsibility of the corporations to increase their efforts to reduce this waste?