Swedish government investigates environmental benefits of e-commerce

The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) has received SEK 3.5 million to investigate how e-commerce of food affects distribution and travel habits.

Tobias Karlsson

VTI is an independent research institute in the transport sector. It has been tasked by the Swedish Energy Agency to investigate the environmental benefits of e-commerce of food.

According to the Swedish Transport Administration, purchase trips in Sweden accounts for 13 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions. It is clear that e-commerce has the potential to change people’s travel habits and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but research is needed to find out more about the actual effect.

“If we don’t take the car to buy food it could contribute to that we take the car to other things instead, which would mean that the energy effect will not be forthcoming. When it comes to ecommerce with food we don’t know what the effect is and that’s what we will look at now,” says Malin Henriksson, researcher at VTI, in a press release.

A part of the research project will also be to compare different grocery stores and their strategies for food e-commerce.

“Digitalization of commerce implies new business models and new distribution solutions,” says Jenny Karlsson, researcher at VTI.

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