The Green Last Mile
Online shopping is convenient, growing more than ever before, and requires many resources. How can we still make it more sustainable?
The best shopping experience…
Lying on the couch or sitting on your balcony with a cup of coffee or iced tea, listening to your favorite playlist, and enjoying the cozy atmosphere around you, there is no better way of shopping, isn’t there?
The number of online orders in Germany increases year after year and reached a historic peak due to Covid-19 in 2020. An average of 11 million parcels per day have been delivered to German households then.¹
Certainly, we are happy for all the retailers and dealers whose business is flourishing due to online orders.
…comes with a downside for the environment…
The drawback, resulting especially from the increase in online shopping, is the burden on the environment.
There is no doubt that delivery services such as DHL, UPS, or Hermes have optimized their delivery system for long-distance routes and that they are constantly improving to deliver parcels even more reliably, quickly, and with lower emissions.
However, according to a study run by the German Umweltbundesamt in 2020, two major emission drivers for online orders remain: The packaging for shipment and the last mile, meaning the route from the final distribution center to the recipient.
The packaging for one parcel causes emissions of up to 900g CO2 equivalents and the last mile transportation adds average emissions of 300g CO2 equivalents per parcel. Multiplying those 1.2kg CO2 equivalents with 11 million packages delivered in Germany per day results in the staggering amount of 13.200 tones of CO2 equivalents.²
…but can’t we be conscious online shoppers?
Many end customers have realized the environmental impact and see it as their responsibility to order and shop with environmental consciousness. Therefore, a trend to order from independent and local stores has emerged and is further increasing. End customers wish to support local retailers and do something good for the environment. Yet, the latter often only is a misconception.
Even if the retailer and the recipient live in the same city, from an organizational perspective, stopovers in large distribution centers and excessive packaging often cannot be avoided if the parcels are sent by large delivery services.
We have a solution for local delivery
That is where we, as banbutsu, step in with our delivery partner Packator. We narrow this process and take advantage of the proximity of stores and customers. Thus, we are a preference for sustainable and efficient delivery in comparison to large logistics services — on a local level.
How do we realize a sustainable delivery?
For implementing a sustainable shipment throughout our delivery zones, the interaction between banbutsu and Packator is crucial. Packator is responsible for the provision of certified couriers, from cargo bikes to transporters, banbutsu processes the orders and creates direct, distance-minimized routes between couriers and customers. This results in several environmental advantages and emission savings:
- Detours via distribution centers are eliminated due to direct deliveries
- Excessive packaging is eliminated due to direct deliveries (savings potential of up to 96% CO2 equivalents)
How is delivery via transporters sustainable?
The key is to not build up new resources but use the delivery infrastructure that is already there. Therefore, we place orders with transporters that lie on the transporter’s existing route to avoid detours and additional distances. This gives us the possibility to operate in vast delivery areas which could not be served only by cargo bikes.
