Product shipping and delivery is a significant contributor to climate change. Although freight shipping accounts for 3% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, the numbers could rise dramatically in the next couple of decades. Additionally, not only does international shipping and delivery result in the burning of fossil fuels for transporting goods long distances, but it also oftentimes result in a lot of excess packaging and plastic waste. The alternative to this is shopping in-stores or supporting local businesses to reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burned for transportation and the amount of plastic waste from excess packaging. Unless it's imperative to buy something online or internationally, it's overall more environmentally friendly to buy local in order to reduce your carbon footprint from shipping.

I agree with your notion of it being more environmentally friendly to buy from local businesses. Big companies and corporations like Amazon make a good portion of their revenue by deliveries alone. It is obvious that it is in the company's best interests to keep up with these deliveries to maintain their revenue, no matter how environmentally non-friendly some of the practices are.

Local businesses are a nice alternative because it is likely that they use simpler or more 'natural' resources to create their products and goods. These businesses also don't usually have big trucks to transport their goods, which contributes to a cleaner footprint. That isn't to say that some local businesses don't use large trucks or transport vehicles, but compared to larger companies, the carbon footprint is much less for local businesses.

I-Pre-SJR State