Is home delivery good for the environment?

cliffter

I don't know if anyone else has thought of this - but do you think that by delivering groceries, the supermarkets are reducing the amount of emissions that would have been emitted if all the customers went to the store themselves?

wishingonastar_3

yes i do, one vehicle going from house to house, is much better than lots going backwards and forwards,

hth

woas

cliffter

but I was thinking about this today and what about all of the staff who have to drive to the store to pick the groceries and drive the vans!?

katastrophy

cliffter wrote:

but I was thinking about this today and what about all of the staff who have to drive to the store to pick the groceries and drive the vans!?

This will still amount to less vehicles on the road than if everyone was to drive to the supermarket IMHO

daphne_descends

I agree, one van doing a round trip of, say, 15 houses/customers will use less fuel and create less emissions than 15 cars each making a return trip.

I especially like that on the Waitrose/Ocado site, when you select your delivery slot some of them are displayed with a 'green van' icon - to indicate that there is another delivery in your area at this time, so choosing that slot helps further. I'd love to see the other big supermarkets implement this too.

cliffter

yeah, that is good - surely it makes sense for them as well (less miles = less petrol = less cost)?. I often wonder though how efficient those vans are when I see two ocado vans passing each other along the road. Don't forget the vans have fridges and freezers on too - how many miles per gallon do you reckon those vans do?!

pfpf

...unless eveyone is having home delivery from Asda, while they are driving around their area to all the Tesco stores looking for R&R's

cliffter

I'm sorry, I'm new - what's an R&R?!

Emms

cliffter wrote:

I'm sorry, I'm new - what's an R&R?!

Look here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=296196

and here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=282052

Emma

jennalicious

It makes no difference to me, I take the bus and the bus stops right outside anyway.

cliffter

that's true actually - how many people are actually using home delivery because they have no other way of getting to a store than walking/public transport? If this makes up a lot of their customers then it means that it may not be as environmentally friendly as it seems...