Estimating carbon emissions from in-store shopping and timely home delivery of fresh produce: Evidence from China

Abstract

The online ordering and timely home delivery sales model for fresh produce has witnessed substantial growth in China. This study establishes a comprehensive analytical framework for estimating carbon emissions from offline in-store shopping and online ordering with timely home delivery sales modes of fresh produce. The estimating model incorporates four aspects of carbon emissions in the retailing process, namely transportation, warehousing, operations, and product packaging. Data from Hongshan District, Wuhan, China, were used to illustrate the carbon emission estimating results for five common categories of fresh produce, namely meat, dairy, eggs, aquatic products, fruits and vegetables. First, for these five categories, carbon emissions from the online retailing channel are typically found to be lower than those from the offline channel. Second, the emissions from store operations and packaging account for a large proportion of the total emissions from the retailing process, while emissions generated by customer visits to stores or rider deliveries account for a tiny proportion of the total emissions from retailing. Carbon emissions from store operations in the offline channel are much higher than those in the online channel. In comparison, emissions from product packages in the online channel are much higher than those in the offline channel. Finally, operating a moderate number of stores and warehouses or increasing the size of customer shopping baskets can reduce carbon emissions from fresh produce retailing.