I have had a bee in my bonnet for sometime about this so I thought I'd monitor a single transaction and hopefully prove my point. Whatever way you look at it there is an energy cost in sending an email. Power to compile and store the original, power to transmit the data, power to receive the data, power to illuminate the data for the recipient are all consuming energy. In any one transaction I accept that the amount in watts may be pretty small for each email but lets look at the emails I have had to purchase 25 metres of cable on Ebay:
MTM Compilation from my email inbox
In my opinion only three of those are needed, confirmation of order, notification of intended delivery and possibly confirmation that delivery has happened, although generally that is only needed when you are away.
So 9 of those emails are a waste of energy and my time to deal with the unnecessary ones is also wasted.
Now multiply that wastage by the number of worldwide online transactions every 24 hours and I'm suggesting that could be a genuinely significant saving in our precious energy!!
I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure!
I used to ride on two wheels, but now I need all four!
The energy used and wasted in online shopping pales into insignificance when compared to that burnt up with social meedja. We could go a long way to 'curing' climate change if we eradicated the various social media platforms
bobins wrote: 02 Feb 2026, 22:05We could go a long way to 'curing' climate change if we eradicated the various social media platforms
I just had time to read this before making my daily catch-up visits to Facebook, Strava and Reddit
Granted I was a bit poorly last week and couldn't do much of any value for a couple of days but even I was shocked to see just how much time I spent disappearing down Reddit rabbitholes, admiring the activities of my friends on Strava and doom-scrolling Facebook
Every Monday morning my 'phones tell me how much time I've spent on various apps. It can be quite an eyeopener
That said, responsible use of social media is a great way of keeping in touch with wide circles of friends so on this occasion I must disagree.
I have a strict policy that restricts my friends on social media to those I know well and spend lots of time with in real life. I have no 'virtual friends'...
I don't do soshul medja at all, anything Facebook or similar that I post here is swiped from other forums. I do inhabit several forums and an inordinate amount of YouTube. Half my electric bill's worth I expect.
Hardly any online shopping though. On average one item from eBay every couple of months. Normally only one email connected to each item.
More from Amazon but only Kindl books. I am looking to extricate myself from that too as Bezos is such a twirpy trumpist.
I have been mildly tempted by Facebook but resisted up to now.
My daughter is a library and information manager and told me that when she was in that position at Sunderland University that many of the students would be milling about an facebooking on their phones, then come and ask her for some journal or similar. She would say to them to stop using facebook to post selfies and look at all the scientific and academic literature that is available there. They had no idea whatsoever.
As said, I inhabit several other forums and there are frequently re-posts of very interesting and unexpected items there.
Usually Quora and ARRSE.
I've just done some back of a fag packet calculations to try and put in perspective the CO2 produced in an email when compared to flying. These are wildly variable figures so it's only a very rough guide, but if the average email puts out 0.3g of CO2, you'd need roughly 2,500,000 emails to equate to one person's CO2 production flying on a passenger plane between London and New York. That figure could easily be 10 times greater or 10 times smaller depending on the average type of email you send / receive.
I have found sometimes you can buy things direct from companies and miss out Amazon, etc. and get things cheaper. These middle men companies have to take their cut by making things more expensive. I do not like the idea of paying for Bezos to go up in the air (space ?) at my expense.
AI is the latest high energy user and could be driving climate change.
myglaren wrote: 03 Feb 2026, 11:33
I have been mildly tempted by Facebook but resisted up to now.
I resist Facebook and others if I can, but sadly do have accounts even if I never post. Official and semi official bodies seem to think we all use it - the only way to know whats happening in our small village is to look at the facebook group ..."I didn't know there was a quiz at the pub last week" ..... "we put it on facebook .....", train delays - "for more information follow us on X .... etc". AAArgh.
But back to the original question. Yes there are inefficiencies with online ordering, but unless you live miles from other habitation the delivery process is fairly energy efficient because the vehicles are carefully routed to minimise costs. Certainly more efficient than one person going somewhere to collect goods. I used to avoid small order delivery costs, £5 from screwfix etc., then I realised it cost me far more in car costs and time to go and collect so unless I need something 'today' I just order for delivery.
Then there is the store. In the olden days you would go to a trade counter or whatever where a man (invariably men in the olden days) perhaps in a brown coat would serve you. The store had to be heated and lit, regardless of how many customers were there, kettles boiled to brew tea and brown coats laundered and...and...and. If you added it all up I'm sure online ordering is far more efficient - room for improvement yes, hopeless case? Surely a net gain.
The real way to save energy is buy less 'stuff', but that's harder than it seems for most of us however self disciplined we are.
Richard_C
Current:C4 Max Hybrid, C3 1.2 Auto
Past Citroens: Dyane (x2), 2CV, Visa, BX (x2), Xantia, Xsara Picasso, C4 Picasso,C3 (x2) C5 X7 Tourer, Synergie 1.9TD, C1
Others: Hillman Hunter, Cortina Mk1, Maxi, VWT2, Granada, SAAB 900, SAAB 9-5, R5 Gordini
Yes i agree Richard, online shopping is almost certainly more efficient overall than the old 'go and get it' method.
My grievance is the overall wastage of energy and loading of the internet highways caused by the sending of so many unnecessary emails which wouldn't happen if they cost the senders a postage fee to send. In other words taking advantage of the apparent 'free' facility 'because they can' and thereby making unnecssary extra demand on the infrastructure throughout the systems involved.
As well as the energy wastage, I see it as a similar issue as we have nowadays with the unnecessary use of cars when legs would do. I am as guilty as the next person, using my car to go to our local corner shop and post office which is only 5 minutes walk away because I don't like walking in the rain or back up a pretty steep hill, but together with the mums and dads, dropping and collecting their offspring at the school up the road, we actually have a 'rush hour' twice a day in our estate. Mostly Chelsea tractors parking all over the pavements and causing great inconvenience for the residents and potential denial of access for necessary vehicles like ambulances and fire engines.
So my view is that the unnecessary emails cause pointless loading on the system which will in time cause the same congestion in the electronic highways as we now see on our road network from motorways to cul-de-sacs overcrowded with a proportion of unnecessary vehicles largely there 'because 'they can'
myglaren wrote: 03 Feb 2026, 11:43
Just as well I don't fly anywhere (smug)
Nor me and never will again...
mickthemaverick wrote: 03 Feb 2026, 08:55
Alongside the social media issue what are your thoughts on the thread title Jim?
The thread title is succinct and well crafted Mick
More seriously...
I generally agree there's way more email communication than is strictly necessary. All that's needed is a confirmation of the order and any despatch/tracking information. We don't need to know it's been despatched, out for delivery, been delivered - we know that - and we definitely don't need to be invited to comment on how well the courier did or to complete a survey of how our experience was and/or what we thought of what we'd bought.
I expect the volume of this kind of emails is infinitesimal compared to all the spam constantly floating around - most of which we don't see due to the good work of our mail providers largely filtering it out for us.
And likely tiny compared to all the advertising stuff. That really gets me. A while back I bought a pair of jeans online from a reputable company. The jeans are great, the service was great and I'd buy again but one thing that really annoyed me was up to three emails a day from them with special offers and so on. They are not alone in this practice by any means. I have been forced, due to sheer volumes of this sort of advertising, to make good use of the unsubscribe links. Thankfully, these work in the majority of cases.
Mick and Richard, your posts above this one, I totally agree with all said...
I still use my legs at every opportunity with errands often being literally ran, don't worry about getting wet, use the cars the least I can and buy only what I need.
