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Gewählte Master / Diploma Thesis:

Katharina Stoll (2016): Die Umweltrelevanz von Onlinehandel im Vergleich zu stationärem Handel mit Fokus auf die Abfallwirtschaft.
Master / Diploma Thesis - Institut für Abfallwirtschaft (ABF-BOKU), BOKU-Universität für Bodenkultur, pp 101. UB BOKU obvsg FullText

Data Source: ZID Abstracts

Abstract:: In recent years the number of products bought via e-commerce has increased and experts predict an ongoing rise in future. This raises questions about the ecological effects of this development. Therefore the aim of this thesis was to compare the environmental impacts arising from e-commerce and traditional retail. The focus was on the respective amount of packaging. On the basis of data from the company Sonnentor GmbH, literature and own surveys scenarios ware developed and analysed using life cycle assessment (LCA). In order to show the impact of the population density, one urban and one rural region were compared. In the basis scenario of the dense area e-commerce is the best option for the impact categories climate change and resource depletion. For terrestrial acidification traditional retail shows better results due to the lower amount of packaging. On the contrary in the case of the rural region e-commerce is also the best option in terrestrial acidification due to the high impact of private transport in the traditional retail scenario. In the e-commerce scenario the production of packaging and energy supply for placing the online order are dominating the environmental impact. Even though the amount of packaging is almost seven times higher in the case of e-commerce than in traditional retail, their disposal only has a minor impact on the results. Their impact accounts for less than 5 % of the total impact. Interestingly, different results can be shown in case more products are bought, the first delivery is not possible, the product is returned and only a part of the transport distance is accounted for the product. Results show that a general statement about the environmentally best sales channel is not possible. A lot of factors as the transport distances and the number of products have to be taken into account when buying a product.; Beurteilende(r): Salhofer Stefan Petrus; 1.Mitwirkender: Obersteiner Gudrun