Autumn 2007

IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) is lending its support to a UK Government-funded four-year study of the environmental impact of home deliveries. The work is being spearheaded by Professor Alan McKinnon of Heriot-Watt University.

The project comes under the auspices of the Green Logistics scheme, an existing programme that was launched a year ago. This involves six universities with an interest in transport and logistics - Cardiff, Heriot-Watt, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton and Westminster. Funding is provided by the UK Government's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

IMRG is underpinning the work with its own Go Green, Go Online campaign, which it describes as 'a lightning-conductor' for interest in this subject - aiming to focus research, and to raise awareness of 'the huge potential' that it says the internet-enabled marketplace presents for further increasing efficiency and reducing waste.

IMRG chairman James Roper told Fulfilment & e.logistics: 'Obviously we're hoping the study will show that home delivery is greener than doing shopping in your own car, but at the end of the day we're agnostic in this. We want to know the reality of the situation, whatever it is.'

 

In practice, it seems unlikely that the study will find much negative to say about home deliveries, since the body of research done around the world so far has suggested that they generally tend to save energy and environmental costs.

Indeed, IMRG is already promoting home shopping as the 'green' option. As James Roper puts it: 'We can all reduce the environmental impacts of our shopping and simultaneously reduce the cost of inputs and waste disposal, simply by shopping online.'