As the promotional products industry continues to evolve, there are more similarities to what is going on at the same time in retail consumer products. No small portion of that comes from the fact that both you and your customers are consumers, too.
Have you given any thought to your personal carbon footprint? Have you thought about talking to your customers about their footprint as a way of guiding shipping and logistics discussions for your products? Since you both are consumers, you’ve both likely made an online purchase based on the magic words “free shipping and returns.” Perhaps you have even bought a few different sizes of the same item, knowing that returning those that don’t fit is a safety net. It’s no shocker that online sales of apparel are now more than a quarter of all clothing purchases. It’s easy and much more comfortable than trying on clothes at the mall. The problem is that this convenience comes at a cost. 40% of the clothes bought online are ultimately returned. The damage is really done on the interstates and the streets of your neighborhood as trucks shuttle clothing back and forth from your home. The cost can be measured in increased pollution and global warming associated with the fossil fuels that power your shopping convenience.
In 2016, transportation overtook power plants as the top producer of carbon dioxide emissions in the US for the first time since 1979. Nearly a quarter of the transportation footprint comes from medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Increasingly the impact is coming in what’s called in supply-chain logistics “the last mile”-- the final step from a distribution center to a package’s destination. The “last mile,” as Miguel Jaller writes for Vox, can in truth be a dozen miles or more.
Before we started buying everything online, the majority of “last-mile” deliveries were to stores, which tended to cluster in areas that can be more easily served by large trucks. Today, more packages are now going directly to residential addresses. We’ve traded trips to the mall, in relatively fuel-efficient cars, for deliveries to residential neighborhoods by trucks and other vehicles. The emissions aren’t the only problem in a home shopping economy, it’s also the fact that returns may be in slightly damaged condition, have items missing, or just take so long to process that the consumer demand for them passes. Where do the items end up then? All too often in a landfill.
So, the next time you are talking shipping with a customer, maybe it’s a good excuse to ask to talk about their carbon footprint. And while you’re at it, perhaps you could give yours a quick check, too. How difficult would it be to know your size, consolidate purchases into bigger orders, or, as a complete shocker, just buy fewer clothes?
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for 40 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. You can find him volunteering as a Guardian ad Litem, traveling the world with his lovely wife, or enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Connect with Jeff on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram, or reach out to him at jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.