Energy efficiency of b2c e-commerce in Japan

The adoption of Information Technology (IT) affects energy demand. One component of this larger issue is changes in energy use driven by e-commerce. This work undertakes a case study of energy consumption in sales and distribution via business-to-consumer (b2c) e-commerce and conventional retail for the Japanese book sector. The four factors considered are: packaging, transport from publisher to home or bookstore, consumer travel to and from the bookstore, and building consumption at home or bookstore. Results of the simulation of total energy use indicate that e-commerce consumes slightly more than traditional retailing, basically due to additional packaging. Although one might expect that substitution of personal automobile travel for courier services would favor e-commerce, the difference is small due to the multi-purpose use of cars. Energy use in bookstores is very similar to that for consumers making an online purchase at home. While overall consumption for both systems is quite similar, the structure of energy use is very different, suggesting new priorities for strategizing energy-efficiency. Important factors influencing the energy use of b2c e-commerce include packaging, loading factors of courier trucks, number of trips/delivery, and residential energy consumption