Comment by shagie
> Not an expert though just saying it opened my eyes to how inefficient "last mile delivery" energy consumption is.
One of the oddities of home shopping and delivery is that it can be more efficient.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/10/nx-s1-5020321/food-delivery-m...
> In 2022, researchers from the University of Michigan and Ford Motor Co. modeled a single 36-item grocery cart to compare greenhouse emissions from an e-commerce grocery delivery and a traditional trip to the store to get the same items. Gregory Keoleian and colleagues at the university's Center for Sustainable Systems found that using an electric vehicle to pick up groceries could cut emissions by as much as half, compared to a gas-powered vehicle.
> They also found that home delivery could be an even better option. That's because with a delivery vehicle, orders are often clustered, with a driver dropping off not just your groceries, but also hitting neighbors during the same run. "Delivery is actually going to be more efficient in general than driving yourself in a gasoline SUV to the store to pick up your groceries," Keoleian says.
The mentioned paper is https://css.umich.edu/publications/research-publications/car...
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https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/what-if-more-people-bought...
> A recent USDA survey found that in 88% of U.S households, people hop in their car to buy groceries, driving an average of 4 miles to their preferred store. ... All these car trips result in carbon pollution: over 17 million metric tons of CO2 come from car tailpipes just from driving back and forth to the grocery store.
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https://csanr.wsu.edu/how-do-grocery-and-meal-kit-deliveries...
> While it is common for the consumer to associate convenience in the food industry with increased greenhouse gas emissions, this is not always the case. Results from a 2013 University of Washington study indicate that grocery delivery has the potential to reduce carbon emissions anywhere from 20 to 75 percent (Ma 2013), while another study out of Finland found the potential for grocery delivery to reduce emissions by up to 87 percent (Siikavirta et al. 2002).
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https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/shop-online-sustaina...
> Buying goods online can be better for the environment than in-store shopping for one fundamental reason: With online shopping, a single truck or van can replace multiple car trips, by multiple households, to stores. It helps to think of it this way: In most of the United States, almost every purchase means putting a vehicle on the road—either your own or a delivery company’s.
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Some others:
https://blog.sevensenders.com/en/ecommerce-carbon-footprint-...
https://web.archive.org/web/20250302115526/https://sustainab... (this one is quite comprehensive also including the difference in packaging)
And those articles come with their own citations to other articles.
So the EPA report is bullshit interpretation of the USDA study: >A recent USDA survey found that in 88% of U.S households, people hop in their car to buy groceries, driving an average of 4 miles to their preferred store.2
USDA study: >Overall, households are, on average, 2.2 miles from the nearest SNAP-authorized supermarket or supercenter, but their usual store is 3.8 miles away.
Based on these questions: >This report presents initial findings from the FoodAPS survey on three key questions:
1. How do shoppers travel to their main store and how far do they travel to get there?
2. In what type of store (eg., supermarket, mass merchandiser, convenience store) do U.S. households typically shop for groceries?
3. Do store and travel mode differ by participation in food assistance programs or food security status?
This can only tell us the distance to the store and does not support "All these car trips result in carbon pollution: over 17 million metric tons of CO2 come from car tailpipes just from driving back and forth to the grocery store."
In order to draw that conclusion, you need to show that the travel to and from grocery store was single purpose. Which is not supported by the data.
Most people I know don't go out of their way to go grocery shopping nor do they take specific trips to do so. It will be done in conjunction with another outing or when returning from work.
This could also! explain the reason that food secure people travel greater distance, as they tend to travel greater distance overall they choose a location closer to their travel route rather than their dwelling.