Newsletter 40  July 2008/3

If you drive your car to the shops when you do your shopping, you need to buy 27 items to reduce your carbon emissions to the same level as buying one item online. And even if you go by bus, you need to buy nine items to maintain parity of emissions. The calculations assume that the carbon emission of each item bought online and delivered to the customer is just 132g of C02.

These are among the preliminary findings emerging from research by Heriot-Watt University, which is participating in a wider £2 million Government-sponsored project to investigate the relative environmental impact of online and conventional retailing. The findings were cited by Julia Edwards of Heriot-Watt during a ceremony held by IMRG to present its OLGAs (Online Green Awards).

At the same presentation, Julia Hailes, a sustainability consultant, said that if logistics companies could make better use of specified delivery time slots, some could make almost three times as many deliveries a day as major supermarkets achieve.