{"id":9223,"date":"2018-10-24T20:00:45","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T00:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/?p=9223"},"modified":"2019-03-12T17:16:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T21:16:48","slug":"conscious-consumerism-online-shopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/conscious-consumerism-online-shopping\/","title":{"rendered":"Conscious Consumerism: Sustainable Online Shopping"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\">When you do shop, be smart about it!<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/conscious-consumerism.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9224 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/conscious-consumerism.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"390\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/conscious-consumerism.jpg 390w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/conscious-consumerism-300x268.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 390px) 100vw, 390px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People shop online all the time. The amount of packages delivered in the US has nearly doubled in the last decade. As a consumer, there are a couple of easy things you can do to be more conscious and minimize your carbon footprint.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But first, I will risk annoying you to state the most important message: buying something we don\u2019t actually need is just a waste of money, space, and greenhouse gas emissions that go into making the product and delivering it. We all have things lying around, gathering dust, that we\u2019d be better off having never bought in the first place. So, before buying something, take time to double check: Do I <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">really<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> need this? Will it be used regularly?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Assuming you do need it, the following will help to minimize your carbon footprint:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Optimize shipping options.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you need to get multiple things, order them together as much as possible so they come in one delivery and one package.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Choose \u201cno rush\u201d shipping instead of 2-day delivery when you can. Why? Expedited shipping means companies send out trucks that aren\u2019t full to get our products to us quicker. This ultimately means more miles driven by trucks and more of them on the road.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When offered and if convenient for you, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/l\/6442600011\/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_1405964225?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;node=6442600011\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">choose to pick up items from a centralized location<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (in a locker at a public location). This prevents trucks from having to go \u201cthe last mile\u201d to every single person\u2019s door.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re shopping on Amazon, use <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">smile.amazon.com<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> when you buy stuff so a portion of the money goes to an organization of your choice. I did some research and believe <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coolearth.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cool Earth<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is most effective at minimizing emissions. They help prevent the deforestation of rainforests, while simultaneously improving the quality of life for people in these communities.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Ryan Hagen writes to help reverse global warming and bring more sustainability into the world. He is the founder of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crowdsourcingsustainability.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Crowdsourcing Sustainability<\/a> and sends out an informative and uplifting <a href=\"https:\/\/app.convertkit.com\/landing_pages\/443105\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sustainability newsletter<\/a> every two weeks.\u00a0This post was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.crowdsourcingsustainability.org\/wash-clothes-cold-water\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">originally featured<\/a> in the newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"test\" class=\"et_pb_module et_pb_text et_pb_text_1 custom-text et_pb_bg_layout_light et_pb_text_align_left\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_text_inner\">\n<p><em>Read other content from the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.crowdsourcingsustainability.org\/what-on-earth-take-sustainable-action\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Take Sustainable Action<\/a>\u201d section or <\/em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.crowdsourcingsustainability.org\/sustainability-newsletter-what-on-earth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">See all sections<\/a>\u00a0of the What on EARTH?! sustainability newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you do shop, be smart about it! People shop online all the time. The amount of packages delivered in the US has nearly doubled in the last decade. As a consumer, there are a couple of easy things you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":9224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[234,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-tips","category-lg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}