In the March 3rd, 2009 edition, the New York Times ran an article by Stephanie Clifford in which Alan Marks, senior vice president for global communications at eBay, declared that eBay is green. Let's take a close look at this claim.
It is true that some merchandise on eBay is second hand and it is "green" to buy pre-owned products. The down side of the purchase is that most eBay sellers are using the USPS, UPS, or FedEx Ground to ship their goods and all three providers use non-sustainable fossil fuels for their planes and trucks
Green Score: Let's call it a draw. Good on eBay sellers of used merchandise. Bad on the seller's shipping choice. (Of course it is a big fat 0 if the seller is shipping new merchandise.)
eBay has introduced a "Green Team", an internal group charged with making the company environmentally efficient.
The Green Team site involves employees and the public and encourages green behavior. eBay hopes to build a "green" community among its members.
Green Score: Good on you eBay for inclusion and community building.
The roof of the new eBay building in San Jose is covered with solar panels and they are using carbon off-sets to be carbon neutral.
Green Score: Good on you eBay for greening your buildings.
eBay does not report total emmissions, nor do they discuss in detail the environmental measures they have taken and how much they have reduced total emmissions.
Green Score: Tisk, Tisk. It's hard to evaluate your company without the details. ('Green Washing' Alert)
eBay announced its green credentials in a 5-page insert "30 Days of Green" in all April 14th editions of Hearst Magazine. Hearst Magazines do not use recycled paper, but they claim to get 70% of their paper from sustainably managed forests.
Green Score: Tisk. There are many comparable magazines using recycled papers. I'm giving only one Tisk since they are using a great deal of paper from sustainably managed forests.
The eBay partnership with Hearst Magazines goes a bit deeper. Each Hearst Magazine created 2 pages of green content and included 1 page of eBay product selections in the same issue. How this translated across the various target markets was interesting. In the NYT article, author Stephanie Clifford remarks that the Cosmo article is entitled "Sexy Ways to Go Green" which include showering with your mate to save water and lounging around your home in the nude rather than using AC, while Good Housekeeping presented "Recycling Made Simple" to a target audience 20 years older.
Green Score: Let's call it a draw - Good on Hearst and eBay for getting the word out, but is this just a simple case of 'green washing'?
Hearst's website, TheDailyGreen will be providing content for eBay's Green Team site as well.
Green Score: Let's call it a draw - Good on Hearst and eBay for getting the word out, but is this just another case of 'green washing'?
So how would you score eBay on the green scale? Chime in.
--till next week Restore, Recycle, Refresh, Renew
8 comments:
Think of the energy and resources consumed in your typical purchase of a typical item. Anything. A CD, an iPod, shoes, fishing gear, diaper geanie, you name it. In the "real world":
1 You go to and from a store, likely by car, or maybe bus or train. You might go on foot or by bike, but be honest, how often? How far do you drive? What's your gas mileage? So there's gasoline consumption, the resulting emissions of particles and gases, road congestion, not to mention stress and time expended.
2 The store is lit, heated, air-conditioned, wired for security and sound -- all consuming masses of energy
3 Every item in the store has been transported there via a series of heated/cooled warehouses and intermediate steps involving planes, trains, and trucks, all contributing their own emissions.
3b. If you don't buy first time, repeat.
4 You pay, probably using credit or debit card. OK, it's electronic. Minimal emissions involved there.
5 You drive home (see 1)
Now think of shopping on eBay:
1) Fire up a computer. Uses power, especially for the screen -- but truly minimal compared to an internal combustion engine.
2) You bid, buy, and pay, all electronically
3) Seller sends you the item. That involves postage, which may involve a trip to the post office, and then FedEx or mail trucks and maybe trains and planes. But the typical eBay transaction cuts out many of the extra transport, warehousing, and retail steps that consume a large proportion of the energy in the traditional process.
4) You can re-use the packaging!
When I do this math, I conclude that it's greener for me to buy an item from an amateur, or "direct" seller on eBay, than from a regular retail, or even a regular e-tail store (which incurs all the overheads of centralized storage and transport). So not only is my eBay purchase cheaper, it's better for the planet.
http://blogs.ebay.com/mbaseller
Krysta makes a great point. When you see the steps you take "on paper" to purchase something from a store (not an online store), you really see how much energy is being used/wasted. I have been an ebay customer for about a year now, and I really am just as satisfied shopping on ebay as I would be in a retail store. Don't get me wrong, I don't buy everything on ebay, but I have found that it is a great place to shop for shoes, vintage dresses, gifts, accessories, home furnishings, etc...
Reusing what we already have or what someone else has is a small step, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. Something like ebay is a great way to make reusing look "cool." Ebay does this because it is "cool" to wear vintage or find a great pair of shoes for 10 bucks. So people that normally would not care about shopping on ebay to use less energy, but they are to find a steal are actually helping out unconsciously.
I completely agree with Krysta. I think that just ebay's idea in general is a step towards going green. It is a more efficient way of getting goods. Also, although a majority of ebay's purchases are mailed I do know of a few people who have purchased things and gone to pick them up. For example, I know someone who bought tickets to a baseball game and the seller left them at the box office for them to pick them up. I also know of a case where tickets were bought and they did the online purchase where the seller paid for the buyer to print them out. I know it is probably a small majority of the transactions but every little move makes a difference right? Maybe if ebay made it a rule for ticket purchases to be that way then that would cut down on some of the shipping that they do.
And speaking of shipping, I agree with Krysta's point about reusing the packaging. Because the people that I know that use ebay normally keep the boxes and then end up using them for something that they are selling to people on ebay as well!
As an Ebay customer, I purchased a new phone battery just the other day and not one time during my purchase did I notice the incentive to "go greener". They want to send the message that they are going green but for an infrequent customer like my self, I did not see the incentive advertised at all. Luckily, I decided to buy from a US seller oppose to the other seller in Hong Kong because I was thinking about emission and time.
Krysta's comment brings up a very good point, regular retail stores waste much more energy even if their product selection is green.
Like craigslist.com maybe Ebay will pick up on the bartering idea and promote green by encouraging customers to buy locally (narrowing down your search by city not only item) maybe even close enough to walk or bike.
Just a thought but another way to make the world a greener place.
I don't think that eBay UNgreen (read: like Wal-Mart etc) but I don't exactly think eBay when I think green. But like you mentioned in your blog post the biggest reason that they aren't green is from shipping but is that really eBay's fault? I think that it really is a shame that more shipping companies aren't going green. With fuel emissions being one of America's biggest issues and with green technology on the rise I think that more shipping companies should be looking into this. I do however think that it is something that a lot of people don't think about. I mean people ARE walking more, carpooling, usuing public transportation but I think that the damages that their shipping is doing slips peoples minds. I'll admit that it is something that I sometimes think about - especially when you are getting a really cheap deal on a used item on eBay!
But I agree with Krysta that when people are going from store to store or mall to mall when they are looking for a specific item that IS a lot more damaging than shipping (since other items are in the truck with yours when you have something shipped to you). But I think that is part of the human mindset. If these shoppers browsed online FIRST and maybe called stores to see which one has their item that would definitely use a lot less fuel.
I am not an eBay shopper, but do agree with Krysta that when you actually break it down the footprint created by going out and shopping compared to ANY internet shopping is substantially different. Having said that, I think that many companies are trying to take a step towards becoming "greener" and that if eBay is going to claim they are becoming "greener" they should include all the details. Just because they put some solar panels on their new building and give themselves credit for selling second hand merchandise, they should include everything they are doing.
I definitely agree with a lot of Krysta's points. I do think eBay is a lot more eco-friendly than going out shopping, but I don't think they're entirely green, either. I love how companies throw around the word "green" and exclaim to the world how green they are because they use one energy efficient light bulb in the bathroom of their office. Not to say that eBay isn't trying, but they seem to be bragging about something that isn't really praise-worthy. Anne gave them a few "tisk"s and a few "draws". They don't exactly seem to come out on top. It looks like we have forgotten the whole premise behind eBay: ONLINE auctions. In order to be online, you must have a computer which I've heard consumes energy. For serial eBayers (buyers and sellers), hours upon hours are spent on the computer. Granted, I am on my computer right now, so I'm not claiming innocent, especially because I love shopping on eBay, but a company who requires, essentially, energy usage, how green can they really be?
I definitely agree with Krysta that buying from eBay saves a lot of energy and is all around better for our world. I do buy from eBay but not all too often, usually when I can't find something in stores that I want. Now, I look at buying in stores differently because I never realized how much is being wasted by traveling to the store. Buying from eBay is better because the product is being reused and it's actually cheaper too. I do feel as though eBay should list all ways in which they are becoming "greener" so that there is no confusion.
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