In order to make online shopping more climate-friendly and sustainable it is important for consumers to keep making demands on online retailers. The easiest and most efficient way to affect your environmental impact is to simply adapt your own consumer behaviour. Below are PriceRunner’s six simple tips on how to shop climate-friendly online.
The best way to reduce your negative impact on the environment is to not buy something unless you really need it. Take your time and think over if you really need the latest phone or a new trendy dress and try not to be tempted by different store’s various campaigns and promotions.
Buying good quality items will usually cost a bit more. But on the other hand you will get a product that will last longer which is good for the environment. On price comparison websites like PriceRunner you can read user reviews and scores on different products. You can also compare prices, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to buy high quality products.
Compare how good certain products are for the environment. Many products, for example white goods will have a standard for climate-friendly consumption. But you can also compare the impact on the environment with many different products, for we example clothes – these days you can easily find out if they are free from poisonous substances or made from recycled material.
Avoid buying from online stores that are very far away, for example from China or the USA. Long shipping distances will naturally have a negative impact on the environment. Try to instead find local businesses in the UK the carry the product you are looking for.
More and more retailers are actually thinking carefully about how to operate their business in a more climate-friendly and sustainable way. Keep an eye out for online retailer’s that do climate-compensated shipping, are actively reducing their energy consumption in their logistics centre, are using recyclable packaging material, and are making demands on their logistics partners to deliver their products in an efficient manner.
It’s not always easy to make sustainable choices when you’re shopping online, but we on PriceRunner want to change that. That’s why we’re working on implementing sustainability-filters into our service, so that you easily can find products that are good for both you and the environment. You can, for example use our sustainability-filter for categories like TVs, white goods, beds, couches and clothes.