Is it better for the environment to shop online and have the goods delivered to your home or to go the shops yourself by car or bus to purchase them? This paper discusses the methodological issues that have to be resolved when undertaking this environmental comparison. These issues include: 

Where you draw the boundary around the calculation:

• How you estimate utilization factors for freight and passenger vehicles
• How you allocate the CO2 emissions between activities and consignments
• How you deal with failed deliveries and the return of unwanted / defective products

The paper thus highlights some of the difficulties in establishing a robust carbon auditing methodology for comparing distribution channels. It is assumed that the auditing is done downstream of the point at which the conventional and online distribution channels diverge because up to this point, products will have a similar carbon footprint. The paper recommends a series of methodological rules to be applied when conducting this type of carbon comparison. 

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/13598541111103502

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