Assessing the environmental impact of e-commerce

International Post Corporation (IPC) has commissioned Verisk Maplecroft to undertake a review of “prominent, high-quality existing literature” in order to assess the differences between the environmental impacts associated with online and traditional retailing. In a statement issued on its website yesterday (19 October), IPC said: “The focus of the literature review is the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the ‘last mile’ delivery. In both online and traditional retail, the factors dictating the greenhouse emissions generally fall into two broad categories: consumer behaviour and logistics. Consumer behaviour includes: the number of items purchased concurrently, the distance travelled, combining traditional shopping travel with other activities (known as trip chaining), returns, and transport type. Logistics includes: route optimisation, warehouse densities, retail densities, and missed deliveries.”

IPC added that the full literature review, including references, is now available to IPC Sustainability programme participants.