Comparative Greenhouse Gas Footprinting of Online versus Traditional Shopping for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods: A Stochastic Approach

Variability in consumer
practices and choices is typically not
addressed in comparisons of environmental impacts of traditional shopping
and e-commerce. Here, we developed a stochastic model to quantify
the variability in the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints of product
distribution and purchase of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) via
three prevalent retail channels in the United Kingdom (U.K.). We found
that shopping via bricks and clicks (click and fulfillment via physical
store delivery) most likely decreases the GHG footprints when substituting
traditional shopping, while FMCGs purchased through pure players with
parcel delivery often have higher GHG footprints compared to those
purchased via traditional retail. The number of items purchased and
the last-mile travel distance are the dominant contributors to the
variability in the GHG footprints of all three retail channels. We
further showed that substituting delivery vans with electric cargo
bikes can lead to a GHG emission reduction of 26% via parcel delivery.
Finally, we showed the differences in the “last mile”
GHG footprint of traditional shopping in the U.K. compared to three
other countries (China, Netherlands, and the United States), which
are primarily caused by the different shares of modes of transport
(walking and by car, bus, and bike).