Yesterday's announcement that DHL's GOGREEN service will help the World Economic Forum meet its carbon neutral promise begs the question: what's the rush?

To be sure, the upcoming meeting in Davos, Switzerland (January 24-28) will bring together over 2,000 thought leaders from the worlds of business, politics, academia and the media–all, presumably, very busy and important people. But how many of them will really NEED overnight shipping service while they're in Switzerland? How many overnight parcels will they send that really need to be delivered the next day? How many of their truly rush items could/should be dealt with via electronic means instead (email or secure FTP)?

Indeed, how often do any of us really need the express shipping services we all abuse?

My friends at Patagonia actively encourage the use of ground shipping whenever possible. In fact, this past holiday season, they widely promoted free ground shipping for orders over $175. Sure this was a sales promotion, but it was an environmentally responsible sales promotion.

In his book titled Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard specifically addressed the environmental cost of transportation. In addition to his assessment of the energy impact of transportation in the life span of a Patagonia product, Yvon offered the following point of view:

…consumers should not be ordering items to be shipped by airfreight simply because it's convenient, especially if it's a box of lobsters from Maine or a fresh salad from California. The dollar cost added to the item may be relatively small, but the environmental cost is huge.

…the global economy is not sustainable, It's completely dependent on burning cheap fossil fuel. Shipping goods by rail or boat uses 400 BTUs per ton for each mile shipped. Truck freight used more than 3,300 BTUs per ton, and air cargo uses 21,670 BTUs to move a ton of goods one mile.

When shopping long distance by catalog or the internet, you should reconsider ordering that live lobster from Maine, and ask if you really need that pair of pants sent overnight or by second-day air.

So, when you're thinking about what to get your valentine, plan ahead and allow plenty of time for ground shipping (if you can't buy something locally, of course).

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

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