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You want green holiday gift guides? We got green holiday gift guides
[Update: As pointed out by a commenter, this figure seems awfully high. It’s not totally clear what the 600 million-ton figure refers to (all holiday emissions, maybe?), but it is pretty clear that shipping alone couldn’t have that big an impact.] Incidentally, TerraPass will be offsetting the CO2 emissions from shipping of any TerraPass gift purchases made during the holidays. And without further ado, here’s a round-up of some of the green gift guides available online:
Tags: Gifts, Green giving, Holidays
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Comments
Nope, that’s more than the entire output of Canada, period. Canada is responsible for about 517 million metric tons per year. 3.
Comment by Tom McKinnon
@ Nov 29, 2006 1 PM
 I strongly support what TerraPass is doing, but I would like to request that you do more careful fact checking before issuing unsupported statistics. The US as a whole generates about 6 billion tons of CO2e per year (EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2006). Ten percent of that due to shipping at the Christmas season? I don’t think so. Perhaps 600 million _pounds_ is the correct answer but I don’t have any way of checking that figure. I find it somewhat disturbing that such an absurd factoid would pass through the review channels at an organization devoted to reducing GHG. While this error may seem minor, it is not. Urban legends like this get picked up and passed along and in the end our whole movement is discredited.
Hm. You know, the figure does seem pretty wacky, and unfortunately I can’t really fact-check it. I know the source, but I don’t know the source’s source. Given that 25% of retail sales occur during the holidays, it seems at least possible that 10% of U.S. annual emissions are embodied in the goods and services purchased during the holidays. Of course, this is quite a bit different from suggesting that shipping alone is responsible for those emissions. I will update the post. Thanks for keeping me honest. 5.
Comment by Clarissa Rodriguez
@ Nov 29, 2006 3 PM
Here’s another holiday stat I received today from www.resuablebags.com e-mail about holiday gift wrap waste. I wonder, what could be the CO2e for this amount of product? …From production to consumption and disposal, “use and toss” gift wrap generates enormous waste (each year a staggering $5 billion worth of gift wrap is tossed in the trash.) Restart the old tradition of using cloth gift bags & inspire others to do the same… I do not know their source. It is the holidays, and this year companies are offering more “green” products, made with and packaged in more eco-friendly materials, manufactured and sold by employees who receive fairer wages, than ever before. But are we doing the right thing by satisfying our seemingly insatiable desires to buy by filling our shopping carts with this new breed of products? Another idea for “greening” your online holiday purchases is to start at www.buy4good.org - the commissions they receive are going to tree planting and carbon offsets. 8.
Comment by Anonymous
@ Dec 6, 2006 8 AM
I actually think the 600 million tons stat might be right. I’ve seen it referenced a few other places to the Department of Energy, but I’m still trying to track down an original reference. That being said, as Adam pointed out, 25% of retail is done at Christmas… and most products travel quite a distance before getting to the end user. Think global, buy local. Just wanted to share with your our latest Daily Greens: Green Gift Guide video! We loved your Kill A Watt product so much we included it in our show. Cheers, host, Daily Greens Post a commentSearch the TerraPass blogTurn your old cellphones and PDAs into a FREE TerraPass. |
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Could you clarify the statement about US CO2 from Xmas shipping - is it more than the annual SHIPPING output of Canada? Thx.