Is ecommerce good for the planet?
Buy.com pointed out this week a study, done by a group at Carnegie Mellon, which shows that buying products online is better for the planet than retail stores. The study reports that buying online saves 35% in energy, and carbon emissions, versus a traditional retail purchase. Interestingly enough, it looks like your carbon-spewing, gasoline sucking car is mostly to blame — most of the energy gain in the study came from “customer transport” and the fact that delivery trucks generally are delivering a lot of products in a neighborhood, saving the gas/energy/emissions from all of us driving around. Plus (which we noted in our news item) — if you’re one of those last-minute-gotta-have-it-next-day-by-Fedex folks–it just about erases all those gains, because of the fact that airplanes are also big, energy sucking, carbon emitting vehicles.
