3 ms·

It depends, where is this hypothetical person living? I live in the middle of a city, the store close to me serves the thousands of people living in my square k

by pimmen 7y ago

It depends, where is this hypothetical person living? I live in the middle of a city, the store close to me serves the thousands of people living in my square kilometer. Because of scale, the truck that transports new goods to the store has a low carbon emission per customer. I have friends who live way out of town. If they have a store it serves maybe twenty people. Instead of dividing the truck’s emissions by thousands of people you just divide it by twenty.

caseyohara 7y ago
There's also the consideration that by living in a city you likely live closer to an airport or transportation hub, so the last leg of any shipped goods (in a semi truck and/or delivery vehicle) is going to be shorter as well.
robryan 7y ago
If someone has to get in their car at all to go to the shops I would say it is likely to be more carbon intensive than a delivery service with high utilisation. A shopping center in general would be generating a lot more emissions per product than a warehouse. On the other side often things bought online come with a lot more packaging. I think Amazon is trying to cut down on this by having suppliers where possible use a box for a product that is durable enough for shipping without having to put it in another box.
samtheprogram 7y ago
I don't think it's that simple, because the frequency of the shipments and amount of goods shipped would also decrease (although not linearly) since there are less people to account for. If both systems are equally optimized, would there be a difference? That said, in practice the "economy of scale" argument still applies and the inner-city store will overwhelming produce less carbon, besides the fact that a rural area may imply an increase in the distance good are shipped.
acchow 7y ago
It mostly depends on the cost of the last mile (or last 5 miles). In a dense city, most of the last mile will be served by foot walking to a store which would have lower emissions (zero) compared to a delivery vehicle. In the suburbs, the last mile to a store will likely be a detour by car from wherever you wanted to be. So delivery probably has a smaller footprint than storefronts (since the delivery vehicle is likely doing deliveries nearby anyway).

by pimmen 7y ago

caseyohara 7y ago

There's also the consideration that by living in a city you likely live closer to an airport or transportation hub, so the last leg of any shipped goods (in a semi truck and/or delivery vehicle) is going to be shorter as well.

robryan 7y ago

If someone has to get in their car at all to go to the shops I would say it is likely to be more carbon intensive than a delivery service with high utilisation. A shopping center in general would be generating a lot more emissions per product than a warehouse. On the other side often things bought online come with a lot more packaging. I think Amazon is trying to cut down on this by having suppliers where possible use a box for a product that is durable enough for shipping without having to put it in another box.

samtheprogram 7y ago

I don't think it's that simple, because the frequency of the shipments and amount of goods shipped would also decrease (although not linearly) since there are less people to account for. If both systems are equally optimized, would there be a difference? That said, in practice the "economy of scale" argument still applies and the inner-city store will overwhelming produce less carbon, besides the fact that a rural area may imply an increase in the distance good are shipped.

acchow 7y ago

It mostly depends on the cost of the last mile (or last 5 miles). In a dense city, most of the last mile will be served by foot walking to a store which would have lower emissions (zero) compared to a delivery vehicle. In the suburbs, the last mile to a store will likely be a detour by car from wherever you wanted to be. So delivery probably has a smaller footprint than storefronts (since the delivery vehicle is likely doing deliveries nearby anyway).