The environmental impact of ecommerce logistics real estate and technological interventions for a low-carbon footprint

Abstract

The differences between ecommerce and traditional brick-and-mortar retail are vast and have many unanswered questions from an environmental point of view. Our research sheds light on these processes and assigns values that consumers and retail operators can utilize to reconsider their behavior to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that emanate from this activity. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, this study will first illustrate the primary sources of emissions in the supply chain and simulate a base case of results corresponding to today. Afterward, we change the initial assumptions to output more environmental-efficient outcomes based on new technologies and advances in the ecommerce field. At every point, our study compares the ecommerce channel with the traditional retail one to determine which one poses fewer emissions for a particular case.