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Abstract
Online retailing is growing fast and claims are being made about its positive environmental impact relative to traditional shopping, particularly by the retailers themselves. There is, however, little concrete evidence to support the claims. Whilst there exists some research into the passenger travel implications of e‐shopping, this paper seeks to analyse the issues involved in online shopping from both a passenger and freight transport perspective. The objectives of the paper are first, to set out the complex transport relationships involved in online shopping and in particular the interaction between the passenger and freight aspects and second, to shed some light on the environmental impact of online shopping. It concludes that as things currently stand, it cannot be stated with any degree of certainty that clicks are any more environmentally responsible than bricks. The paper is conceptual in nature and is the pre‐cursor to an empirical study of the issue.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Professor Alan McKinnon for his very helpful comments on an earlier draft and two anonymous referees for their very thorough reviews and suggestions.
Notes
1. A shopping trip is defined in the National Travel Survey as a trip to the shops or from the shops to home even if there is no intention to buy. A trip to the shops where there is no direct shop‐home or home‐shop element is not included in the statistics.
2. Source figures allocate emissions according to where the fuel is consumed and so do not attribute emissions arising from fuel refining or electricity generation to the transport sector but to the energy sector. Figures include all transport except international air and sea.
3. A van refers to a vehicle not exceeding 3.5 tonnes GVW and a HGV refers to a vehicle of >3.5 tonnes GVW.
