Jeff Bezos is pushing online grocery shopping as better for the planet. Is he right?
SalonThe coronavirus pandemic has transformed how Americans get our food. In a section on Amazon's climate impact, Bezos asserts that shopping online is "inherently" more efficient, from a carbon emissions perspective, than going to the store. It's for all of these reasons that, while Miller hasn't seen the study Bezos references in his shareholder letter, she thinks that its conclusion that online grocery shopping delivers carbon savings over driving to the store "make sense." Compared with food production, Miller's study found that last-mile emissions, meanwhile, averaged just 4 percent of the carbon footprint for meal kit meals, and 11 percent for grocery store meals. The "only possible way" Amazon could have arrived at a 43 percent carbon savings for online delivery, she said, is if the company was only looking at transportation and logistics and not at food production.
History of this topic
More Australians shopping for groceries online to ensure they're getting value for money as cost-of-living pressures remain
ABC
‘Quality, Value for Money’: Covid Restrictions May be Gone, But Habit of Buying Groceries Online Here to Stay
News 18
Shopping online surged during Covid. Now the environmental costs are becoming clearer.
Politico
Move to online grocery shopping during pandemic is 'irreversible' as three quarters of UK embrace it
The Independent
Grocery shopping is forever changed by the coronavirus
CNNDiscover Related
