Dear Humans,
With the current pandemic situation, factories stopped operating, cars stopped going, commercial planes stopped flying and people stopped moving around. The halt of these activities allowed our skies and waters to clear up. Accompanying the halt of economic activities, most of you are quarantining at home and you might be searching online for new and novel things to do to kill your quarantine boredom. With so much time to spare, most people have turned to online shopping sprees to kill time. With the COVID-19 situation, e-commerce retailers have benefitted largely from the pandemic-driven demand for online shopping services. With greater demand for e-commerce platforms, companies like Amazon and Sea Limited (Shopee) have grown significantly.
With the skyrocketed demand for online shopping, the extent of environmental degradation brought about by e-commerce would have also amplified drastically. Today I will be sharing how your new found hobby can bring about detrimental effects to the environment. Going to your traditional brick-and-mortar stores to purchase your go-to hair conditioner, your favourite shampoo or your trusty hair gel can actually be environmentally friendlier than shopping online!
Here are some reasons why:
- Shopping at physical stores can reduce carbon footprint by a striking 40% just by walking or cycling to the place itself (Morrison, 2020)
- Buying online will increase carbon footprint via:
- Transportation of goods from warehouse
- Packaging resources
- Delivering parcels to doorsteps
- Redelivering and returning of parcels would double the net amount of carbon footprint
- All of these actually leaves behind high levels of carbon footprint through emissions from burning of fossil fuels and using of unsustainable materials like plastic bags that are non-biodegradable
As demand for e-commerce skyrocketed due to the pandemic, carbon footprint induced by such activities would also be boosted. For consumers who opted for express delivery would triple the impacts of freight transportation (Farmbrough, 2019). For beauty products such as make up products are usually contained in fragile containers and hence would require more packaging to protect the item. Hence, despite the factories shutting down and halting of commercial planes, carbon footprints from your online shopping behaviours can also lead to harmful environmental consequences. However, visiting your physical stores to purchase your items is not viable during this pandemic. For that, there are other solutions to minimise your carbon footprint which would be shared with you subsequently.
Hopeful vibes,
Mother Nature
References:
Farmbrough, H. (2019, October 14). Why Internet Shopping Isn’t Always Better For the Environment. Forbes. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherfarmbrough/2019/10/14/why-internet-shopping-isnt-always-better-for-the-environment/?sh=1c441c875c18
Lim, C. (2020, September 2). 2 e-commerce stocks growing faster than Amazon. AsiaOne. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.asiaone.com/money/2-e-commerce-stocks-growing-faster-amazon
Morrison, R. (2020, February 26). Shopping for the Planet: Going to a Bricks and Mortar Store to Buy Your Groceries Is More Environmentally Friendly than Getting Them Online from Companies like Amazon, Study Claims. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8046885/Buying-physical-shop-environmentally-friendly-getting-online.html