Environmental Benefit of Online Shopping
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The environmental benefit of Internet shops vs high street retailers is probably one of those hotly debated discussions between supporters of either standing.
I support the notion that online shopping mall stores are environmentally friendly and continue to reduce the carbon footprint as more shoppers turn to online shopping and therefore resulting in economies of scale.
Greener Practise
Many shoppers and manufacturers have realized the environmental benefit of online shopping and have already started contributing to greener practises. These changes have become evident in the entertainment and document business sector .
Here vast amounts of literature, videos, music, e-books, etc... are now electronically downloadable realising benefits of no shipping, saving forests and a reduction in the manufacture of non biodegradable plastic or vinyl products where only limited recycling facilities are available.
These transforming technologies have begun to force even the brick and mortar retailers to allocate more of their marketing budget to electronic, internet and e-mail promotions and upgrading of services to shopping online capabilities.
I believe this trend will continue to gain momentum in many other industries.
Energy Benefits
Energy considerations are more significant for a conventional retailer than any internet shop given that the conventional retailer is reliant on lighting solutions to highlight and display the merchandise and general shop lighting.
In addition most conventional retailers are required to offer cooling or heating solutions to ensure customer comfort as this is the industry norm.
Some argue that online shopping will result in increased power consumption within each household as time spent on the computer would be increased for online shopping.
In my opinion this increase would not be significant as no household usually invests in a computer purely for the purpose of internet shopping and from experience most household PC equipment remain switched on most of the day anyway.
Fuels and Pollutants
The conventional retail outlet requires customers physically coming to the shop to make a purchase this requires the customer to commute resulting in burning of fuel and the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere.
This scenario would not be too bad on the environment if the shopper pedalled , used shared transport or an efficient public transport system to get to the stores.
Sadly research and statistics show that this is not the case as most shoppers have a tendency of driving to the shops often with only a single occupant in each car.
Purchases made at your favourite online shopping mall store will invariably be sent and transported on a scheduled transport run meaning that seldom is only a single parcel collected on a courier run as during the trip the courier picks up shipments from many other online shopping mall stores.
Packaging
Whilst the online mall provides additional packaging to minimise damage in transit in the majority of cases much of this packaging is recyclable and biodegradable.
It has been estimated that with online shopping the carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 30% of the normal carbon footprint. My undoubted commitment is to save the environment by taking advantage in support of the environmental benefit of online shopping.
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Author Resource:-
Vinod Morar is an expert when it comes to online shopping tips and information. To find out about online shopping visit his site by clicking here.
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By :
Jessie Stone
Submitted
2010-12-14 17:18:19 |
Article From Article Mayhem
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