Fast and free delivery has an environmental cost

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Well, not exactly.

The problem is that the environment has a cost – and retailers are diligent in trying to mitigate it without harming customers.

"Time in transit is directly related to the environmental impact," said Patrick Browne, director of sustainable development at UPS. "I do not think the average consumer understands the environmental impact of having something tomorrow versus two days from now – the more time you give me, the more I can be effective."

In theory, E-commerce can be more environmentally friendly than a group of buyers making personal trips in their own car: Consolidating products and delivering them on the same trip to a group of homes requires fewer kilometers on the road. In a 2012 study, Anne Goodchild, a professor at the University of Washington, found that grocery deliveries can reduce carbon emissions by 80% to 90%, for example, compared to consumers who will pick up their items by themselves. However, she says, the calculation changes significantly if shipments come from farther and must be sent immediately, which creates fewer possibilities for bundling shipments.

"The efficiency and benefits of delivery result from the consolidation and sharing of a large vehicle," says Goodchild. "And as we move away from this, if we decide to pay someone to make a trip for us, many of these benefits will erode."

Miguel Jaller, co-director of the Sustainable Freight Research Center at UC Davis' Institute of Transportation Studies, found that if a delivery van made fewer than six stops during a trip, the emissions benefit would vanish. (And even with more stops per trip, there may still be more nitrogen oxide involved.)

In 2017, UPS revealed that the e-commerce boom has reduced the number of packages dropped per kilometer, resulting in more trucks on the road and more greenhouse gas emissions.

In the worst case scenario, with one delivery per trip, carbon emissions can be up to 35 times higher than those of a fully loaded delivery van. This does not happen very often, but last-mile contract courier services – such as Amazon Flex and Walmart's Spark Delivery – can deliver only a few orders at a time, often in a personal vehicle or small van. In addition, many consumers order online and continue to shop, which means there are more cars on the road.

With a large scale comes greater efficiency

Ineffective routes are not only more carbon intensive, they are also more expensive for the shipper. If the fast delivery is free, it's only because the retailer removes it in order to defend its customers, while the competition is fierce and that growth is fast. This means that consumers do not feel the real cost – environmental or financial – of getting their ecommerce products very quickly.

"Some companies can absorb the costs," says Jaller. "One of them – it's one of the most important – has been absorbing the logistics cost for a while, and that's billions of dollars a year."

Jaller was referring to Amazon. For its part, Amazon says that the bigger it is, the more effective it can be. The announcement of an investment of $ 800 million in logistics infrastructure, such as distribution centers, trucks and smaller distribution centers located near population centers, was announced as a Premium transition to day-to-day navigation.

Because of its magnitude, Amazon denies that it accelerates to the detriment of the environment. Items eligible for same-day delivery are usually common orders, such as diapers and detergents, which can be pre-positioned where consumers are most likely to need them. This reduces air transport, which emits much more carbon than land transport.

"Prime Free One-Day is possible because we have been developing our network for over 20 years," said a spokesman in a statement. "This allows Amazon to work smarter, building on decades of process improvement and innovation, and delivering orders faster and more efficiently."

A few other companies might be able to compete with this level of proximity to the customer and the volume of goods, which allows them to consolidate deliveries even at a fairly rapid pace. Walmart, for its part, has more than 4,700 stores and an extensive network of warehouses from which it can deliver parcels. Trucks do not have to go to several places.

Some third-party logistics providers also say they are big enough to offer Same-day or next-day service for retail customers without sacrificing carbon efficiency. XPO Logistics is one of the largest in the country, with 90 installations spread across the country, and uses machine learning algorithms to indicate where to store inventory.

"We are looking for who buys the products from where, and who returns the products where, and are able to predict where to place the products in a strategic location near the consumer," said Mario Harik, XPO's Information Manager.

But predict the demand is still an inexact science. Amazon itself has offered consumers a new option, called "Amazon Day", to help them bundle their deliveries into one delivery per week. The company also offers rebates and rewards when buyers choose a "no hassle" shipping, which allows people to receive their parcels in six business days.

"I do not want to say [Amazon is] very respectful of the environment, "said Jaller. I would say less environmentally friendly than others. "

The trade-off between speed and carbon emissions It expands with smaller retailers who carry out more bespoke deliveries, from packed lunch services to specialized razor businesses – but feel that it is necessary for market leaders to follow the same principle of delivery. shipping to stay on their market. And when things are free, people tend to consume more, which could further increase overall emissions.

In general, it is very difficult to pinpoint the impact of e-commerce on the environment, let alone the effect of delivery speed on carbon emissions. It depends on the configuration of each city, the fuel consumption of each vehicle and logistics networks that change from week to week. Consumers can even use the time saved by shopping online to do something else that involves driving. If Amazon delivered everything in electric vehicles, a day of transportation could be as climate-friendly as individual trips – but as part of a major recent investment in the last mile, Amazon ordered 20,000 delivery vans running from conventional way.

Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the climate would benefit if everything slowed down a bit. If consumers were more aware of the impact of their ordering choices, they could think twice before asking for things as quickly as possible. Especially if it's something they do not really need immediately, like a new carpet.

Fortunately, behavioral economics has a lot to say about this problem.

There is an answer: just push

"Nudging", or getting consumers to make the best choice themselves without making it look authoritarian, is a tactic used everywhere, from health care to traffic monitoring. Bills that tell them how much they consume relative to their neighbors have persuaded utilities to consume less water and electricity, which gives guilt and social standards the power to make decisions. Similarly, hotels encourage guests to keep their towels rather than replacing them with fresh towels each day to conserve resources.

How Amazon Prime Day became the Super Bowl shopping

It has already been proven that consumers of e-commerce could perhaps be pushed gently towards less harmful choices. Josué Velázquez Martínez, a researcher at the MIT Center for Transport and Logistics, discovered during a test in Mexico that 52% of consumers were willing to wait longer at the checkout by announcing that a transport slower would save trees.

Sometimes it is enough to crop the decision by "re-labeling" the standard shipment to "green shipping" and making it the default option so that buyers are forced to proactively choose the speed of the shipment. faster rather than the opposite.

Jenic Mantashian, executive vice president of behavioral science consulting firm BVA Nudge Unit, says you can even give people points or badges to choose the greener option that can be redeemed for discounts.

Many people want to be held responsible. Companies can take advantage of this self-awareness and create a "signal of virtue" for their neighbors – put the boxes shipped more slowly in a different color – without having to raise prices.

"We have seen traditional economic incentives work, in terms of behavioral change," said Mantashian. "But we have also seen how your personal core values and what you are trying to achieve as a human being are extremely important."

Of course, if that fails, retailers could also fall back on regular price-based incentives – and may not even lose as much business. According to a survey conducted by the consulting firm Capgemini, consumers who thought they received good service were willing to pay close to 5% of the total value of their order for waiting times of two hours. And it would be good for businesses and for the environment.

"If they were paying the real price of this delivery, they would ask if they really needed it sooner," says Goodchild. "I think we are not doing it for the moment.We think the basic idea of actually paying what it costs in terms of traffic congestion and pollutant emissions is something we are not doing right now, people are ready to buy. "

It may be true that the best things in life are free – but in this case, it's usually because the Earth is paying the price in the end.

– John General from CNN Business and Richa Naik contributed to the report.

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