ECO products…what’s the cost of delivery?

I’m having a mid-life crisis (a youthful one, obviously) and as such (long story short) I’m ‘downshifting’ ¹ to minimise aspects of my life to the max: cost of living; work-induced stress; my carbon-footprint, you name it (well, as much as is possible in an urban life-setting and with a mortgage to pay)!  So imagine my surprise when, in pursuit of pocket and planet-friendly resources, I found that the suppliers of certain products on my hit-list were predominantly reliant upon Royal Mail or national courier services in order to ensure that they can fulfil their promise to customers of speedy delivery.  But how does this fit in with these companies’ green ethos and with my reasons for buying in the first place?

Well, as the post-man who trudged up the hill to hand-deliver my soap pods can vouch, Royal Mail’s final leg (!) is eco-friendly, but is the rest of the journey as environmentally cost-effective? To some extent, at least in the UK, it would appear so:  Royal Mail do publish their comprehensive environment policy² and clearly, as a national company, they are always going to be ‘in the area’ at some point in any given near future, but this does come at a cost, as anyone who has posted a parcel lately will know.  Yet although this is the case, the company that I made the purchase from identifies that consideration is given to speed of delivery, closely followed by cost, as these are the priorities when building up a business, rather than seeking alternatives to try to balance the cost to both customer and to the planet in the first instance.

Now this is exceptionally annoying as, whilst independently achieving my own little mid-life crisis, I appear to have band-waggoned by my thoughts and actions with a whole swathe of ‘Guardian reader’ type trade (soap pods in The Guardian’s ‘Good Buys’ Christmas list of 2006³).  Where it becomes ‘trendy’ to demand such eco-goods, the ‘must-have-it-now ’method of delivery can far prevail over the fiscal and planetary cost for many consumers.  Given that I am apparently (and thankfully) four years behind the trendsetting Guardian, I would have been happy to wait longer and be sure that the delivery of my product of choice matched my reasons for choosing it in the first place, rather than the very next day.  If this would have worked out cheaper, so much the better, given my current drift into thrift!

This begs the question, should some ethically-inspired companies be working more co-operatively and making better use of companies and sites such as Find My Courier so that they can supply an environmentally sound package as a whole, rather than offer an aspect of sound practice with one hand, whilst paying lip service to another?  Until this is part of everyday retail practice, so that consumers can make clear choices about whether their purchases are price-led, trend-led or conscience-led, we may be being environmentally well-intentioned in our ethical purchases, but not necessarily fully environmentally friendly.

What do you guys think about this?

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downshifting

²http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=23300513&mediaId=23300515

³http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/dec/07/shopping.christmas

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