Shopping has become a cloak-and-dagger affair. Conspicuous consumption does not look good during a recession, which explains why so many of us are embracing e-commerce. Online shopping on these shores is projected to grow from sales of ￡8.9bn to around ￡21.3bn by the end of 2011.

    Often people proclaim they've embraced e-commerce because it's "green". This is understandable. If many shopping bags in a recession looks bad, bricks and mortar retail - huge out-of-town shopping centres, retail emporia that insist on leaving their doors open even in winter and grocery stores full of the most inefficient freezers - look terrible during an ecological emergency.

    Should we buy the idea that e-commerce is any better? Several studies have tried to answer this with cold, hard data.

    A 2000 study on Webvan, a now defunct US online grocer, concluded that a wider adoption of e-commerce would not give us environmental gains, while a 2002 study of US book retailing found no greater energy savings selling online. But the study that all e-tailers are talking about is a new one from Carnegie Mellon University, which has found that shopping online via Buy.com's e-commerce model for electronic products uses 35 per cent less energy consumption and CO2 emissions than a traditional bricks-and-mortar model.

    This is largely because it avoids the usual retail distribution model and, of course, the impact of consumers driving to a store （the average person drives 14 miles in total, to purchase three items）. And, from the shopper's perspective, online buying often allows you to avoid the ephemera of retail, like the 100m coat hangers that end up in landfill each year, or elongated till receipts. （Seek out shoeboxx.co.uk which allows you to organise all your receipts online, ultimately doing away with them.）

    But both models are flawed, because online or on the high street, retailers are dependent on a hydrocarbon-fuelled delivery system. Trucks deliver 4.8m tonnes of freight each day in the UK, which works out at about 80kg per person. To make matters worse, after a truck drops off the goods it often returns empty to the depot. A 2002 study of 20,000 haulage trips found that only 2.4% of return journey legs found suitable backloads. This journey represents a large part of the impact of what we buy.

    Online shopping may prove marginally more green in terms of energy saving （often a strategy that favours homogenised, multinational retail）, but we shouldn't forget progressive bricks-and-mortar retail. Places such as Ludlow in Shropshire, a fairtrade town based on ethical trading ideas, where the independent high street has been hard won. It brings consumers face to face with products with an equitable backstory, shortened supply chain and with values. This is a wiser and wider retail experience; anything else could leave you feeling short changed.

    購物已變成了一種隱秘的事情。在經(jīng)濟蕭條期間，炫耀性消費看起來不大好，這便解釋了為什么我們有如此多的人紛紛采用電子商務(wù)模式。基于上述原因，預(yù)計到2011年底，網(wǎng)上銷售額預(yù)計將從89億英鎊增長到約213億英鎊。

    人們總聲稱他們熱衷于電子商務(wù)是因為它的"綠色環(huán)保".這是可以理解的。經(jīng)濟衰退時期，如果還能看見大包小裹的購物袋算是糟糕的，那么，那些磚瓦和砂漿大樓里的零售業(yè)務(wù)在環(huán)境告急的時期看起來就可怕了。城鎮(zhèn)外的各大購物中心、即使在冬天仍舊堅持著開門營業(yè)的零售百貨中心、以及各家堆滿低效能冰箱的雜貨店都名列其中。

    我們該相信電子購物更好更環(huán)保嗎？有些研究已經(jīng)試圖利用客觀確鑿的數(shù)據(jù)來回答這一問題。

    2000年，一項對Webvan（一家現(xiàn)已解散的美國在線雜貨商）進行的研究得出結(jié)論是，更廣泛地采用電子商務(wù)不會讓我們獲得環(huán)境收益，而 2002年進行的一項美國圖書零售研究則表明，網(wǎng)上銷售未能實現(xiàn)更大的能源節(jié)約。但是，目前所有的電子零售商關(guān)注的焦點成為了卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學的最新研究內(nèi)容，該研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，通過Buy.com的電子商務(wù)模式在網(wǎng)上購買電子產(chǎn)品時，與傳統(tǒng)的磚瓦商場銷售模式相比，能源消耗和二氧化碳排放不到35%.

    這主要是因為它避免了通常的零售分銷模式，當然，還有避免了消費者開車去商店帶來的影響（平均每人共駕駛14英里，購買三種產(chǎn)品）.從消費者的角度來看，在線購買常常可以讓您避免零售狂熱，如每年的百米外套衣架排到垃圾填埋場，或是一堆長長的收據(jù)。（查找shoeboxx.co.uk,你可以在線整理所有收據(jù)，最終消除它們。）

    但兩種模式都有缺陷，因為無論是在線還是在商業(yè)街上，零售商們都要依賴碳氫化合物燃料輸送系統(tǒng)。在英國，每天卡車都要運送480萬噸的貨運，大約人均消耗80公斤。更糟的是，一輛卡車卸下貨物后，往往要空車返回停車場。2002年，一項關(guān)于2萬次運輸行程的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，只有2.4 %的回程能找到合適的返回裝載貨物。這樣的行程表明了我們購買是產(chǎn)生的一大部分影響。

    從節(jié)約能源看，網(wǎng)上購物可能略有較為綠色環(huán)保的性質(zhì)（通常稱其為一項側(cè)重于均質(zhì)跨國的零售戰(zhàn)略）,但我們不應(yīng)該忘記現(xiàn)在有所進步的磚瓦大樓里的零售方式。像什羅普郡的魯?shù)侣迥菢拥牡貐^(qū)--一個基于道德交易想法的公平貿(mào)易城鎮(zhèn)，獨立發(fā)達的商業(yè)街已經(jīng)來之不易。它使消費者們能直接而公平的看到產(chǎn)品及產(chǎn)品后的真實一面，縮短供應(yīng)鏈和附加價值。這是一種明智而更廣泛的零售經(jīng)驗；除此之外，還有什么可以讓你感到受騙呢。