An Eco Friendly Home Business - Is Shopping Online Green?

Shopping Online is probably one of the easiest things to do once you get the hang of it. So, when I heard that there was a home business that harnessed the power of the Internet and was earth friendly... I was sold. I could do the majority of my shopping online, make money and help the environment! How easy could this be?

Well, the answer is very easy.

My only concern was the issue of online shopping. Is shopping online a green way to go? I did some research and came across a study by the Carnegie Mellon Green Design Institute. It was great and answered my question... Shopping online is green!

Not only is it green, e-commerce consumes close to 1/3 LESS energy than conventional shopping! Not only does online shopping reduce energy use, it has a smaller carbon footprint than the traditional brick and mortar store.

Here is the information condensed.

Almost all the spent energy comes from transportation when dealing with traditional purchases. The average person drives 14 miles for a purchase. The average purchase consists of 3 items. They divided the energy used per item. This is a lot of consumed energy for one consumer and three items! There was also energy concerns dealing with the carbon footprint of brick and mortar stores. The energy these store use just for being open is amazing.

This is where E-commerce and shopping online shine. They used UPS in the studies. A UPS truck has dozens and dozens of packages on the truck. Most of the packages had several items in the box. One truck stops by several households and makes several deliveries on a route in one day. This is where the energy consumption was a third less. (Imagine the gas used if every household went to the UPS store to pick up the contents of just one truck!)

There were two downsides to Online Shopping: Express Airmail and the packaging. Packaging increased the carbon footprint unless recycled materials were used and Express Airmail consumed more energy than regular delivery.

If you want an Earth Friendly Home Based Business, now is the time!