NDLI: The net effect: environmental implications of e-commerce and logistics

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Matthews, H.S. Hendrickson, C.T. Soh, D.
Copyright Year	2001
Description	Author affiliation: Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA (Matthews, H.S.)
Abstract	The advent of the Internet and e-commerce has brought a new way of marketing and selling many products, including books. The system-wide impacts of this shift in retail methods on cost and the environment are still unclear. While reductions in inventories and returns provide significant environmental savings, some of the major concerns of the new e-commerce business model are the energy and packaging materials used by the logistics networks for product fulfilment and delivery. In this paper, we analyze the different logistics networks and assess the environmental and cost impacts of different delivery systems. We find that the definition of analysis system boundaries and input assumptions determines the overall assessment of economic and environmental impacts of e-commerce for book retailing. With a return (remainder) rate of 35% for best-selling books, e-commerce logistics are less costly and create lower environmental impacts, especially if private auto travel for shopping is included. Without book returns, costs are comparable.
Sponsorship	IEEE Comput. Soc., Tech. Committe on Electron. & the Environ
Starting Page	191
Ending Page	195
File Size	432346
Page Count	5
File Format	PDF
ISBN	0780366557
ISSN	10952020
DOI	10.1109/ISEE.2001.924525
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2001-05-09
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Logistics Books Costs Packaging Internet Pollution Environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques Computer aided manufacturing Manufacturing processes Companies
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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