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Study: ‘Cyber Monday’ 50 Times Greener Than ‘Black Friday’

Summary:

In this research study, MindClick SGM sought to compare the relative greenhouse gas emissions of online and in-store holiday shopping during the post-Thanksgiving shopping weekend. We modeled the environmental impact of purchasing consumer goods either online or through a trip to a retail outlet for an in-store purchase using anEconomic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) model approach . The environmental impact, as indicated by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, was then weighed by the relative dollar amounts spent during the traditional ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ purchasing windows. In summary, we find that the impact of an in-store purchase represents an increase of more than 15 times that of an online purchase; the overall impact of Black Friday is more than 50 times that of Cyber Monday.

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Introduction
  3. Methodology
    1. Functional Unit Comparison
    2. Model for in-store purchase
    3. Model for online purchase
    4. Assumptions
    5. EIO-LCA Model
  4. Model Results
  5. Transportation for In-store Purchase
  6. In-store purchase results
  7. Online Purchase Results
  8. Comparison
  9. Discussion
  10. Conclusions