Towards A More Sustainable Future? Simulating the Environmental Impact of Online and Offline Grocery Supply Chains

Abstract

The negative effects of traffic, such as air quality problems and road congestion, put a strain on the infrastructure of cities and high-populated areas. A potential measure to reduce these negative effects are grocery home deliveries (e-grocery), which can bundle driving activities and, hence, result in decreased traffic and related emission outputs. Several studies have investigated the potential impact of e-grocery on traffic in various last-mile contexts. However, no holistic view on the sustainability of e-grocery across the entire supply chain has yet been proposed. Therefore, this paper presents an agent-based simulation to assess the impact of the e-grocery supply chain compared to the stationary one in terms of mileage and different emission outputs. The simulation shows that a high e-grocery utilization rate can aid in decreasing total driving distances by up to 255 % relative to the optimal value as well as CO 2 emissions by up to 50 %.

Land Efficient Mobility and Emissions: Click and Collect vs. Grocery Deliveries in Switzerland

“…Some studies focused on the evaluation of the entire supply chain. For example, Trott et al [30] created an agent-based simulation in Anylogic (https://www.anylogic.com, accessed on 12 March 2023) of a grocery supply network considering both grocery delivery as well as click and collect. Their simulation includes 9400 households in the area of "Mitte", "Oststadt", "List" and "Groß-Buchholz" in Hanover, Germany.…”

A comparison of the environmental sustainability of brick‐and‐mortar retailing and online retailing: Contrasting academic research and consumer perceptions

“…Consequently, many recent empirical studies have examined the environmental dimension of the sustainability of the B&M and EC channels by comparing them as distribution channels (e.g., Mangiaracina et al, 2016; Pålsson et al, 2017; Siragusa & Tumino, 2021). Further research that compares B&M and EC channels from a consumer perspective, in addition to the objective measurements mostly used in the scientific literature is required (e.g., Trott et al, 2020). Especially as consumers' perceived sustainability of a specific distribution channel may differ from an objective measurement and is likely to have a stronger impact on their channel choice than purely objective measurements, which are probably unknown to customers (Latif et al, 2019; Otto et al, 2021; Wiese et al, 2012).…”