Is it greener to shop online?

Letting your mouse do the walking sounds eco-friendly, but there are hidden costs to e-retail, warns Lucy SiegleShopping 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. Continue reading...