How amazing does grocery shopping in your pajamas sound? Pretty amazing. And—as it turns out—you can feel good about it, too. You can majorly cut your carbon dioxide emissions by using a grocery delivery service rather than driving to and from the store, according to a new study out of the University of Washington.
Researchers tested hundreds of different models for home grocery delivery in Seattle, including different rates of use by shoppers and handling delivery in clusters versus spreading it out. The takeaway: “It’s very hard to find a scenario in which there’s not a reduction in vehicle miles traveled and a reduction in CO2 using this service,” says Anne Goodchild, PhD, an author of the study and an associate professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington.
By swapping a trip to the store for a delivery service, you can slash your carbon dioxide emissions by about half, says Goodchild. And if companies opt for clustered delivery rather than a more random schedule, they can also cut their own carbon dioxide emissions by about 75 percent, she says.
You’ll save time and the environment? Win-win! Worried about cost? While you’ll have to check your local delivery service to see how its prices stack up against those at your go-to grocery store, ordering online can be cost-effective—especially since it saves you money on fuel and encourages you to stick to a pre-planned shopping list.
If you want to give it a whirl, check out the options below. (No grocery delivery service in your area? You can still reduce your carbon footprint by walking, biking, or taking mass transit to the grocery store if possible—or even making it a group activity with a neighbor-friend, says Goodchild.)
Peapod
Delivers to markets within Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin
Minimum order: $ 60
FreshDirect
Delivers to the greater New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut metro area, as well as the Greater Philadelphia area
Minimum order: $ 30
AmazonFresh
Delivers to the greater Seattle area
No minimum order
Safeway
Delivers to several markets within California (in Southern California, they’re Vons.com), as well as Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Phoenix and Tucson, AZ; Las Vegas, NV; and the Baltimore/Washington Metropolitan Area
Minimum order: $ 49
photo: iStockphoto/Thinkstock
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