I wonder if anybody knows of a decent environmental analysis of shop vs. internet shopping?
Obviously shops use a lot of energy, and people travel to them - but my guess is all those delivery vans driving round to every house use more fossil fuel - and in terms of packaging, I guess shop deliveries feature outers containing multiple products, instead of the Amazon big-box-for-one-item approach.
It’s interesting how more environment-friendly consumption often seems to mean going back to arrangements I just remember from my childhood - eg. returning and reusing glass bottles, instead of throwing plastic ones away - and I suspect the old shopping model, where you walked with Mum to the local high street every other day and bought a little from each of half-a-dozen shops - was more environment friendly than either the out-of-town retail park or the internet-delivery models.
And this has got me to wondering if France’s famous retention of at least a bakery in almost all local areas has played a role in its social cohesion (relative to the UK or US for example).