How Green is Amazon's Supply Chain?

Image via CrunchBase

I admit it.  My family are "abusers" of Amazon's Prime option for shipping. We constantly order one book or CD and have it shipped for two day arrival. No doubt it goes initially by air, is wrapped in a lot of cardboard and plastic, but costs "only" $79 per year for unlimited shipping, or about the cost of shipping 10 or so goodies from Amazon each year. Except we probably ship forty or more single item packages per year when all is added up. All in all, we buy a lot more from Amazon as a result of this brilliant marketing strategy, but does the strategy really create a much less green supply chain because it encourages lots more small shipments?

I have just finished breaking down about 40 Amazon boxes for recycling. Our family all came to Maine for Christmas and brought with them numerous presents, many in Amazon boxes. I suppose that getting in my car, driving to the Mall and buying the same books or CD's is not exceptionally green either, but it seemed to me that the "one product at a time shipment" behavior created by Amazon Prime does lead to a less efficient and less green distribution system. At least I combine errands when I get in the car to go shopping. Of course, Prime make UPS, USPS and Fedex quite happy to have all the extra volume, but also creates more greenhouse gases.

I should not worry so much about one company un-greening its supply chain. But the trend is spreading to other on-line retailers.  More and more are offering free shipping, even for split orders.  To be fair, Amazon does let you ship in one shipment to save shipping costs, but this does not apply to Prime, which ships everything for free anyway.  One book order for 6 kid books for Christmas arrived in three packages, some from the West Coast, since not all products are stocked at all distribution centers. Not a very green logistics process.

Amazon could go into the business of selling carbon offsets for a shipment, buying the offsets at auction and selling them, at a markup, to green-oriented consumers.  It's another way to make a buck in retailing.  Or they could partner with an company like TerraPass, or non-profits in the space, to sell the offsets at cost.  Either way, it would be a good public relations gesture to help their supply chain be a lot greener than it is today.

Comments

[Brian Deterling]

On the transportation side, as long as the total volume and number of shipments is the same, does it really matter if it's a bunch of small shipments versus fewer larger shipments? I'm assuming the shippers are good at optimizing the load - obviously if your one book was sitting on an otherwise empty plane or UPS truck, it would be different.

On the packaging side, you may have a point, although I'd prefer more recyclable cardboard boxes and fewer hard plastic clamshells that require a machete and a blowtorch to open.

In general though, that's what's so difficult about being green. Every time you think you've identified a process that could be greener, you can come up with arguments about how the alternatives are just as bad. If you read those books on a Kindle, you save all the pollution from the shipping process, but how much is caused by the power used to transfer the book, the data center holding the storage, the Kindle device, etc?

Brian

[Dave]

Brian

Great comments! All point to the same paradox I had when I wrote the piece--what's green logisitics anyway? More small shipments do have higher tare weights than consolidated ones, however, and in spite of optimization, lead to more in-transit carbon emissions.

Thanks for caring about these issues and helping us all think about what it means to reduce our waste.