VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 13, 2020 / By mid-April, roughly a month after the World Health Organization had officially declared COVID19 a global pandemic, Amazon reportedly hired an additional 175,000 employees to help deliver on a surging demand of online orders. This employment boom indicates that, unlike other industries, the eCommerce industry did not experience economic pain as a result of the pandemic, but quite the opposite.
This increase in online ordering created both a packaging graveyard bursting with delivery materials and a massive influx in carbon emissions resulting from transporting goods from point A to B. TreeEra, an industry-leading Canadian based organization focused on sustainability through community-funded tree planting, is providing a simple solution to this complicated problem with their recently launched program 1:Tree. 1:Tree allows businesses and individuals the option and opportunity to plant a tree with each good or service sold, offsetting the carbon footprint created from reliance on eCommerce delivery services.
TreeEra 1: Tree solution.
So what's the real cost of convenience for door-step delivery?
For those curious about the impacts COVID19 has had on online shopping, Amazon's recent earnings report paints a descriptive picture of what the current consumer landscape looks like. According to a recent Forbes article, the online mega-marketplace founded by Jeff Bezos (who recently earned the title of the world's richest person thanks to his booming Amazon empire) experienced a $570 billion boost to its market capitalization from January 2020 to the end of July 2020. At a current valuation of $1.59 trillion, Amazon's drastic growth in 2020 has made it into the world's third-largest company, behind Apple and Microsoft.
The immense rise in Amazon's market valuation directly correlated with the rise of the lockdown shopper - a conscious consumer abiding by the expectations to #stayhome and #staysafe in order to #stopthespread of COVID19. The lockdown shopper became increasingly reliant on eCommerce platforms for their purchasing needs, which spurred growth in online sales across a wide range of industries as indicated below from a recent McKinsey and Company report.
McKinsey & Company report on consumer online shopping trends.
This reliance developed out of necessity at the onset of the pandemic, however, months later, consumers have now become partial to the convenience of door-step delivery, creating new habits that are predicted to persist past the pandemic.
According to a Fast Company article, in 2017 alone, over 165 billion packages were shipped in the United States, a figure equivalent to 1 billion trees. With this analysis coming from 2017 when a pandemic wasn't running ramped around the world creating a surge in online ordering, it's safe to suggest that the number of shipped packages has vastly grown, further increasing the costly environmental impacts associated with delivery.
The TreeEra Solution
Scouring your brain in an effort to recall your recent online shopping purchases? Allow me to save you the effort. It's gone up. In this scenario, the path to environmental hell truly was paved with the best of intentions - that being to protect society through social distancing. However, somewhere along the way we've developed an online shopping habit that is not predicted to subside anytime soon. The solution to our environmental angst lies within the TreeEra's most recent innovation - 1:Tree.
TreeEra planting team.
In an answers and solutions society, 1:Tree allows consumers the freedom to continue ordering their groceries, shaving kits, board games, and any other items making their way into online shopping carts, without the associated guilt of environmental destruction. Any business with an eCommerce platform can partner with TreeEra through this program, which plants one tree for every package shipped.
The organization also offers individuals and businesses the opportunity to give back through two alternative initiatives: 1) Tree Subscriptions - a monthly subscription where trees are continually planted on behalf of the subscriber and 2) Tree Certified Program - custom initiatives tailored to businesses, where trees are planted to offset specific causes, such as paper waste.
Founded in 2016 by a tech entrepreneur, musician, and finance manager, TreeEra is the product of three diverse viewpoints coming together through a desire to do something about the unifying problem that is climate change. With sustainability at the company's core, the team members have focused their organization on uncovering innovative solutions to offset global carbon emissions.
Wondering what actions you can take today to reduce your carbon footprint?
TreeEra has provided 5 pieces of actionable advice that everyone can introduce to their daily routine:
1. Plant Trees
"Planting trees is a simple answer to a complex problem. Trees are a measurable gesture of social responsibility and a single tree can offset up to one ton of CO2 in its lifetime. Trees also regenerate themselves over time so the more we plant the more carbon we can sequester in the future."
2. Eat Less Meat & Dairy
"Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet. Research shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% - an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined - and still feed the world."
3. Give Your Car a Break
"Choose cycling, walking, and public transit over driving wherever possible. Changing your commute habit to include modes of active transportation has been identified by the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) as a valuable way to save energy and mitigate climate change especially for short distances."
4. Buy Local
"Supporting local agriculture, such as farmers markets and community business offering local products, helps the environment by reducing food mileage. Extra benefits of buying local include fresher produce, supporting the local workforce, and protecting local land and wildlife by keeping farms open, reducing urban development in rural environments."
5. Ditch The Single-Use Plastic
"The truth is you can't recycle plastic. The timeline for a plastic bag to decompose is over 400 years. This stays the same even when we send plastic to a recycling plant. Plastic that is ‘recycled' is really broken down into smaller and smaller pieces known as "microplastics" which are then reintroduced into landfills or the ocean. These small particles then end up in the fish we eat and the water we drink."
Research ultimately shows that consumers are conscious about their environmental impact and are in favor of supporting companies that make efforts to operate sustainably, yet often lack the knowledge to make informed decisions. In fact, according to a recent Neilsen report, 55% of global online consumers across 60 countries said "they are willing to pay more for products and services provided by companies that are committed to positive social and environmental impact."
Photo credit: TreeEra.
For companies that have put time, money, and energy into the sustainability of their business, TreeEra allows them to share with consumers how they are taking that extra step in considering the actual cost of transportation. Through providing proper information, consumers are armed with the knowledge to inspire conscious consumption, especially during a period in time when the reliance on eCommerce platforms is at a record high with little sign of slowing down.
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SOURCE: TreeEra