Coronavirus vs. Climate Change
Because we tend to assume the lazy option is the less eco-friendly option, you might think people ordering groceries online is worse for the environment. But research has shown that having vehicles delivery orders to multiple households, which is how Amazon Fresh and other vendors operate, is significantly better for the environment than having many people in cars going to the store individually. Not only do these service vehicles delivery to several homes on one round trip, they also follow the fastest route to each home, which makes the whole system pretty efficient and can reduce the carbon emissions associated with grocery shopping by 25 to 75 percent.
(Bad news if you use services like Instacart, which has one driver collect groceries for one person at a time: Because they’re not delivering multiple orders during one trip, they don’t really benefit the environment.)
Jesse Keenan, an associate professor of architecture and a social scientist at Tulane University who has studied sustainability extensively, tells Spectrum that getting groceries delivered is also not more eco-friendly if you’re getting groceries delivered but driving to do other errands in the same day. In that case, you’re just having someone do one of your multiple errands.