environmental impact

Shipping

The Issue:

• Shipping is carbon-intensive

What you need to know:

• Components of photographic products are often shipped multiple times before they are assembled
• Shipping by air is the most carbon-intensive form of shipping
• Shipping by rail or boat is the least carbon-intensive form of shipping

Greener Photography's Recommendations:

• Ask where components are produced and how they are shipped to the manufacturer
• Consolidate shipments by placing multiple orders at one time
• Avoid air cargo whenever possible!

Your album manufacturer is based in California. So… calculating the carbon footprint of the album you just ordered is a simple matter or calculating the environmental cost of your preferred shipping method from their factory to your town. Right?

Not so much.

Think about the carbon footprint of each component of the album, frame, or lens you are purchasing – including the shipping cost from country of origin. Keep in mind that raw materials may originate in one country, be shipped to another for manufacturing, and shipped to the destination country for sale. Is your album's fabric locally produced? What about the wood for your frames? Which country manufactured the CF cards for your camera?

From Yvon Chouinard's book Let My People go Surfing, here are a few statistics on generic energy costs to ship per ton:

Rail or boat: 400 BTUs per ton mile
Truck: 3,300 BTUs per ton mile
Air Cargo: 21,760 BTUs per ton mile

You can see that not only should we ask questions about where things come from, but how they are shipped as well. An interesting side note to the environmental costs of shipping - "Under long-standing trade agreements, fuel for international freight carried by sea and air is not taxed." (Rosenthal, New York Times) In other words, no one is paying the environmental cost of shipping!

What can you do to reduce the impact of shipping? (from Grist article )

• Avoid air freight whenever possible. Aside from being expensive, it consumes far more fuel per mile traveled. Patagonia calculated that the energy costs associated with a product rose from 6% to 28% when the mode of transport shifted from ground to air. Let your vendors know you want shipping options other than air cargo.
• Consolidate shipments. This reduces the overall packaging and fuel use, and can lead to lower shipping costs. Send a weekly set of print orders, for example, to your lab of choice so that multiple orders are shipped together.
• Ask shippers about their environmental practices. Encourage them to use hybrid vehicles, idle-reduction devices, and other cleaner technologies.
• Buy local whenever possible to reduce the need for shipping altogether.

In the end, keep in mind that the environmental impact of the products you buy may pale in comparison to the impacts of shipping them across oceans and continents. Buying as close to home as possible decreases transportation costs, pollution, and the overall carbon footprint of your purchase.

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