Is Buying Grocery Online Healthy For The Environment

Online shopping has become a prevalent practice in recent years, but the real question is if it's environmentally sustainable? As we move towards the future, we need to gravitate towards more environmentally conscious decisions and try our level best in looking out for the best interests of our planet because, after all, Earth is our home, and without it, we cannot survive. Due to centuries worth of resource exploitation, poor planning, and lack of knowledge, a substantial amount of harm has already been caused to the Earth. The finiteness of our resources is more apparent now more than ever. Now that we do know better, we must make decisions in the best interest of the Earth.

It might seem small and insignificant at an individual level, but it is true that you can make a big difference even with these "small" deeds. No effort is too little, and no task is too large. With a little bit of consistency and some awareness in your actions, you can go a long way. You can even inspire others to follow in the same footsteps and, in doing so, ignite a wildfire of environmentally responsible behaviors. In this way, even little efforts like these on an individual level can lead to change on a large scale if enough individuals start practicing them in their daily lives.

Economic Pros Of Online Grocery Supermarts

Detailed Record Of Bills

An often overlooked benefit of buying groceries online is that you can easily store a digital receipt for it, and you won't have to worry about misplacing it. How many grocery receipts have you kept with you? Usually, the answer is either none or not many at most. Keeping paper receipts is hard, and they often deteriorate themselves over time. But with digital receipts, you don't have to worry about that.
The benefit of keeping these receipts is that they might be helpful in the future in case you need to avoid tax evasion.

Creation Of Job Opportunities

With unemployment and overpopulation as serious growing problems, it would make sense to take every opportunity to create jobs and means for people to provide for their families and themselves. A good thing that online grocery shopping does for the economy is that it helps in the creation of jobs for people who can get employed as delivery people who deliver the groceries to your house, as shoppers who pick out your groceries, and even as the people who package your groceries. This opens up multiple employment possibilities.

Might Help Local Businesses

It is true that online shopping might negatively affect the local economy and the taxes going to the state. However, this problem can be solved if you're ordering online from local companies that will not know how to apply the proper taxes but will also benefit the local economy. In this way, online grocery shopping can be helpful in promoting local businesses.

Environmental Pros Of Buying Grocery Online

Smaller carbon footprint

Environmental concerns are a significant part of the answer to whether online grocery shopping is sustainable and environmentally healthy or not. The first thing that comes up in this struggle is the question of whether online shopping leaves a bigger carbon footprint than shopping in person in brick and mortar stores.

Logically, online shopping should have a smaller carbon footprint because the delivery process to multiple destinations is carried out by a single van instead of numerous cars coming and going to the grocery store. This should result in lower greenhouse gas emissions.
However, one big problem occurs with packaging. The packaging required to safeguard parcels alone has a much larger carbon footprint overall, making the environmental damage caused by online shopping much more extensive than just shopping in stores.

But, in the case of online grocery shopping, these extensive levels of packaging are not required, and they are often delivered directly from the grocery store on the same day.

This means online grocery shopping has a smaller carbon footprint than online shopping in general and shopping in stores, making it a relatively environmentally healthy option.

Store Picking

Another option that is even more ecologically sustainable is called store picking. This means that instead of having your groceries delivered to you, you get to pick them up from the grocery store ready to be taken away.

This has two benefits for you.

First, you won't have to pay for delivery to your house, so that's an excellent money-saving strategy.

Next, although you do have to drive to the grocery store to get your groceries, you won't have to wait in lines or have to do the shopping for yourself. You only need to pick them up.

Environmentally, it can be substantially beneficial if you strategically plan out your grocery pick-ups. If you're already going out, then opt to pick up your groceries and get this errand done in one go. It's even better if the grocery store is already on your way to your destination. The carbon footprint of online grocery shopping when you choose to store pick is significantly reduced and makes it the healthiest option for the environment.

Lesser Environmental Impact Of Refrigeration

There is no denying that it takes up a lot of energy to keep refrigerated vehicles going. It is quite a difficult task to keep them refrigerated for long periods without straining the battery too much.

However, this can not compare to the amount of refrigeration each supermarket uses in order to keep its products cool. In fact, half the energy consumed by all supermarkets is taken up by refrigeration.

This means that the comparative negative impact of refrigeration required in online grocery shopping is much lower than that required by shopping in person. This makes online grocery shopping a much healthier option again.

Conclusion

With all these pros in mind, it is safe to conclude that online grocery shopping is a reasonably healthy and environmentally beneficial practice that does better than it does harm. Thus you can buy groceries online without any worries about contributing to more significant economic and ecological problems.