Shop, Collaborate, and Listen | Grist | News | 21 Dec 2007
Grist reports on studies that show that online shopping better for the earth than going to the mall. Besides lowering carbon dioxide emissions, a shopper can save time by online shopping because it reduces car trips and walking from store to store to find what you need.
Online shopping is better for the planet than multiple trips to the mall, says a somewhat ill-timed study. (Start your online shopping today, spend $3,000,000 for shipping.) “Using several assumptions and data from several authoritative sources, we can reasonably estimate that nearly [500,000 metric tons] of carbon dioxide are kept out of the atmosphere by shopping online” during the holidays, says Jesse Miller of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We would venture to say that patronizing walking-accessible local merchants might be the big winner here — by why do that when malls at holiday time are so much fun?