4 ways to MAKE SHOPPING ONLINE GREENER

If you’re heading online to do your Christmas shopping this year, here’s how to cut the carbon footprint of all those deliveries.

Before the pandemic, we did just under a quarter of our Christmas shopping on the internet* and last year this rose to around a third**. Buying online is convenient, but have you ever stopped to think about the environmental impact of the stream of delivery vans ferrying purchases to our doorsteps? ‘Surprisingly, shopping online isn’t always worse for the environment than shopping in-store,’ says Dr Niels Agatz from the Rotterdam School of Management. ‘When it comes to grocery shopping, delivering orders to the homes of a number of customers can clock up fewer vehicle miles than if all of those customers drove to the supermarket in their own cars.’ His research also reveals that we can reduce the carbon emissions (and vehicle emissions) of online shopping deliveries by up to 12% simply by choosing ‘green’ slots, such as those offered by Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Ocado, which show a driver is already due to be in your area. To cut the carbon footprint of your digital spend further, here are three other tips: DO place one order instead of several small ones when you’re buying from the same online retailer. On Amazon, choose to group your items into as few deliveries as possible when you check out. DO choose ‘click and collect’ if you can either walk to pick up the package or if you’re making a trip to the location of the collection point anyway. DON’T choose the fastest delivery option if you don’t need to, as it leaves retailers with fewer opportunities to plan efficient delivery routes. A longer delivery time is likely to be more eco-friendly and you’ll probably pay less in delivery charges, too.