E-Commerce: How the Internet Can Save the Earth
© Environment News Service (ENS) 1999
December 10, 1999
WASHINGTON, DC, December 10, 1999 (ENS) - Shop online and save the Earth. That is the holiday message
offered by Dr. Joseph Romm and the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions. Speaking today in Washington, Romm
pointed to a number of ways in which increasing use of the Internet is
saving energy and resources, and helping to slow the impact of global warming.
Romm and the Center have written a report called "The Internet Economy and Global Warming: A Scenario of the Impact of E-Commerce on Energy and the Environment." The report, released today, details how computers are revolutionizing the U.S. economy, and leading to drastic changes in how Americans work, live, and spend their money.
"The Internet economy could allow a very different type of growth than we have seen in the past," says Romm, lead author and executive director of the Center. "It means that there is also a new energy economy that will have profound impacts not only on the environment, but also economic forecasting."
Romm, who previously headed the $2 billion energy efficiency and renewables program for the U.S. Department of Energy, says recent data on economic growth and energy use illustrate a dramatic shift in the focus of America’s economy.
"The years of 1997 and 1998 saw the biggest drop in energy use in 50 years," Romm said, "without a rise in energy prices." Despite historically low prices for fuel, energy intensity - the amount of energy consumed for every dollar of economic output - fell four percent in 1997 and another four percent in 1998.
Once 1999 figures are factored in, Romm predicts the three year span will show a 13 percent growth in the economy, but only two percent growth in energy consumption. No longer, Romm says, is a thriving economy inextricably linked to energy gobbling industries.
The reason, he says, is e-commerce - electronic buying, selling and trading. Entire businesses are now built on foundations of electrons, instead of bricks and mortar.
And that saves energy in all three of the major components of the U.S. economy: construction, manufacture and transportation. Each of these sectors is experiencing substantial impacts from electronic commerce, and Romm thinks they are only experiencing the tip of the cyber-iceberg.
For example, the construction industry relies on the need for new buildings, for offices, factories, warehouses, and the other components of traditional business. But e-commerce does not need nearly as much floor space as traditional retailers and wholesalers. Businesses that sell online do not need to build actual stores where customers can browse; they can display their wares in cyberspace, and store and ship them from just a few locations.
A recent EPA analysis concluded that energy savings from reduced construction alone could mean that the standard estimates for U.S. energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 may be overstated by the equivalent of 175 power plants and 300 million metric tons of CO2. Such a drastic revision in that figure would significantly reduce both the difficulty and the cost to the U.S. of hitting targets set by the Kyoto Protocols, the international climate change treaty negotiated in December 1997.
Romm’s report predicts that by 2007, consumer and business e-commerce could avoid the need for 1.5 billion square feet of office space - about five percent of the nation’s total - along with up to one billion square feet of warehouses. Internet technology may also eliminate as much as two billion square feet of commercial office space - the equivalent of almost 450 Sears Towers.
Through reduced operations and maintenance alone, that translates to about 53 billion kilowatt hours of energy saved each year - the output of more than 21 average power plants - and 67 trillion BTUs worth of natural gas. Which prevents the release of 35 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. By avoiding construction of all those unneeded buildings, the U.S. saves the equivalent of 10 more power plants worth of energy - and another 40 million metric tons of greenhouse pollution.
"The Internet can turn buildings into Web sites, and replace warehouses with supply chain software," says Romm. "In some sense, the Internet allows the replacement of physical materials with electrons."
Some companies are using the Internet to help determine what people really want to buy, so that they can avoid making goods that no one wants. Many computer companies now let consumers pick and choose what components to include in their new computers, which allows the company to better determine what items consumers value, and reduces the number of unwanted components taking up warehouse space.
"There’s no bigger expense of energy than manufacturing the wrong product, shipping it to a warehouse and having it sit there," says Romm.
Other companies are "recycling" goods that are already built. Online auction houses sell millions of dollars in pre-owned items. By buying used goods, buyers avoid encouraging the consumption of raw materials. "People don’t often think about the energy represented by materials," Romm notes. "Any time you can save raw materials, you’re saving a lot of energy."
It is all a matter of taking better advantage of what we already have, Romm says. The Internet helps people connect more efficiently with goods and services, and that saves energy.
More efficient transportation of goods is also saving energy. The National Transportation Exchange, an online company, auctions empty space on cargo trucks. By some estimates, up to one half of the 18 wheelers on America’s highways at any one time are traveling empty - a major waste of fuel. By ensuring that truckers carry goods in both directions on a round trip, the industry could in theory cut its number of trips by half.
Transportation energy costs can also be reduced by delivering many goods at once. For example, an individual traveling 20 miles on a trip to a shopping mall to buy a Christmas present would use about a gallon of gas. If the present was then wrapped and shipped to a friend in another state, more energy would be used by the trip to the post office and the shipper.
Having the same item delivered by air from a warehouse 1,000 miles away uses only 0.6 gallons per item. Delivering the item by land based shipping costs a mere 0.1 gallon per item.
The important message, Romm says, is that consumers can maximize the energy and environmental benefits of e-commerce by shopping on the Internet and choosing the slowest delivery mode that circumstances allow.
Many businesses are now using the Internet to save office space, materials and transportation costs by letting employees work from home. The number of home offices is now growing by about three million a year, according to the International Data Corporation. Telecommuting reduces overhead for companies, and can also help cut traffic congestion, saving energy and cutting pollution in numerous ways.
Using email and other electronic documents also saves energy, by saving paper. Making paper is energy intensive, and can be extremely polluting. A comprehensive analysis by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s top strategic consultants, estimates that by 2003, the Internet will reduce net demand for paper by 2.7 million tons.
For instance, a number of companies are now turning to the Web instead of paper catalogs to market their products, which could cut back on the estimated 17 billion catalogs mailed in the U.S. in 1998. "For every pound of paper produced, you’ve produced three tons of greenhouse gasses," says Romm. "Every catalog you get, that’s real greenhouse gas."
Newspapers, the country’s biggest single paper consumer, are also going online. BCG projects that Internet substitution will cut total newsprint demand by 1.2 million tons by 2003.
"Newspapers aren’t going to go away," Romm predicts, "but this is going to be a very fierce competition," particularly as classified advertisements, which account for about 40 percent of a newspaper’s revenue, move online. "Print has lots of advantages," Romm notes. "It’s only when electronic has other clear advantages that it takes over." For example, online ads are searchable at the touch of a key, and they do not leave ink on your hands.
And online publications can sometimes do a better job of targeting individual interests, Romm thinks. He himself reads several online publications every day, including the "Wall Street Journal," the "New York Times," and "Wired News."
So you are saving energy right now - by reading your news online, instead of reading a physical paper. And every minute you spend in front of your computer, shopping online, instead of running errands in your car, you are taking another tiny step toward saving the planet.
The Internet Economy report is available, online naturally, at: http://www.cool-companies.org/ecom/pr.cfm
Joseph Romm is the author of "Cool Companies: How the Best Businesses Boost Profits and Productivity by Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions" (Island Press, June 1999); "Lean and Clean Management: How to Increase Profits andProductivity by Reducing Pollution" (Kodansha, 1994); "Defining National Security: The Non-Military Aspects" (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993); and "The Once and Future Superpower: How to Restore America's Economic, Energy, and Environmental Security" (William Morrow, 1992).