The whole world is focused on the care and maintenance of the environment, pending major international decisions. However, many of the ecological measures are closer than we think. In these days that the Mobility Week is celebrated, the Internet, for example, has become one of the means that can most help the Environment, today in this sense. We can carry out hundreds of activities on the Web without any other environmental footprint than the cost of electricity.

According to a study conducted by the Estia-Via Institute, for the Federation of Electronic Commerce and Distance Selling, comparing 5,400 online purchases compared to the classic purchase with super travel, online purchases reduce Co2 emissions by 35%. to traditional purchases.

For Sergio Garasa, CEO of MundoOfertas, the Internet can help improve both our daily lives and our environment: “More and more we are all looking for sustainable development. For this it is essential to take advantage of practical opportunities that reduce the environmental footprint that we leave. Buying on the net is an obvious ecological improvement, which also saves us time and money, thus doubly improving our quality of life. ”

• By reducing the movement of private vehicles, electronic commerce can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The online purchase reduces these emissions to 35% of the physical purchase in the supermarket.
• Improved quality of life: The impulse of online shopping also frees up time. Thus, each online order saves us an average of 20 minutes of travel-back and forth-to the store, in addition to reducing the effective time of purchase that on the internet is just over 10 minutes versus more than half an hour of the store classic Total, 40 minutes up, more free time per online order.

Other data that reveal this importance can be consulted from the website Buy Green, an online store that makes B2C (Business-to-Consumer) and B2B (Business-to-Business) e-commerce aimed at a specific market niche: the products and ecological lifestyle. For example; an e-commerce store uses less energy than a normal store; In addition, the transportation of goods to the customer’s home consumes up to 40% less fuel than a normal trip to the shopping center carried out by hundreds of people.

“Consumers are looking for ways to live a more environmentally conscious lifestyle, be it recycling at home, paper products and reducing consumption of packaging or purchases that have less impact on our natural resources,” he says. Sergio Garasa, general director of MundoOfertas. “Data such as that provided by Buy.com consolidates the idea that online shopping is another avenue that can be seriously considered to help reduce carbon footprint and energy consumption.”

Online purchases save light and air conditioning

The human being demands more and more energy, which is obtained mostly from limited non-renewable sources. Its production constitutes one of the main causes of alteration of the Environment and represents an important weight of the CO2 emissions that intervene in climate change. Saving energy is possible and everyone’s task. An online store uses 30% less energy than a store at street level, because normal supermarkets consume a lot of electricity and air conditioning. By purchasing online the user can avoid the human agglomerations that make this kind of energy consumption necessary, contributing to the reduction of gas emissions.

When receiving the product, fuel is saved, reducing CO2 emissions

The collective transport of many orders to the customer’s home consumes up to 40% less fuel than a family trip to the shopping center made for each purchase.

Today electronic commerce (E-Commerce) represents only an average of 3% in developed countries. Only with this online commerce reaching up to 20% of the total, could generate with it very tangible effects by reducing the environmental footprint of the human being as a whole.

According to data provided by the Swiss company Leshop, every time you buy electronically instead of traveling with the car, you save 3.5kg of CO2. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from online purchases could be equivalent to 63% of US workers staying home for a day

In addition, there are already many companies that are putting all their efforts in taking this type of business forward. For example, there are already supermarkets that only bet on an ecological model of Internet sales, and that also have organic products among their own characteristics. A clear example is Tudespensa.com, a website dedicated especially to fresh food – although it has all kinds of packaged products – and organic

Significant reduction in paper consumption throughout the buying and selling process

Internet purchases also issue invoices, but since they are electronic, the paper consumption and felling of trees that paper mills need is avoided in a relevant percentage. Another example: The manufacture of banknotes worldwide requires 300 million tons of paper per year. When we make a digital purchase, we avoid the use and deterioration of physical notes, with which we contribute to keep paper money that is already in circulation. Only the state of California (USA) could thus reduce up to 175 million tons of waste only on paper.

Drastic reduction in plastic consumptions when buying in a virtual way

In physical stores tend to use more bags than strictly necessary In online stores like TuDespensa is optimized and reduces the consumption of plastic: Their bags are made with organic waste and are larger.

Recycling second-hand products that do not end up in landfills

It is clear that online we can also buy second-hand goods or off-season, as offered by the company ebay.com. This way we avoid that these products are abandoned or fill our landfills.

Finally, we must also remember that information in digital format instead of paper can be considered a great source of savings of CO2 emissions. Although we already managed to get part of the newspaper’s paper to be recycled, we often have to incorporate new raw material, since recycling shrinks the fibers and can only be repeated up to a maximum of 7 times. Therefore, reading the online press instead of paper helps reduce the cutting of new trees.