Saw on the side of an Ocado van ' Greener than walking to the supermarket'. How can this be true?

[BlueKangerooWonders]

That's it really! How would they work it out?

Because the shopping comes from their warehouse straight to you so negates the need (and carbon footprint) of bricks and mortar stores.

so sayeth their website anyhow!

hmmm... bit convoluted! Must get on their website and start complaining!

complaining about what exactly? How simple and concise did you imagine the issue of the green-ness of supermarket shopping would be?

They got a proper eco-audit thingy done last year (Greenstone Carbon Management, Ocado Carbon Footprint Audit, June 2008) that concluded that (which is when it went on their website).

According to the press release at the time:

Mathew de Villiers from Greenstone comments, "Traditional supermarket retailing necessitates the construction of new sites as sales grow, which adds to the ecological footprint of these retailers and generally goes un-reported. For Ocado, however, the infrastructure is already in place to handle three times the current order volumes, making the Ocado warehouse model more environmentally friendly. Furthermore, Ocado's ambitious targets to continue reducing their emissions towards 2012 will mean that the carbon intensity of an Ocado delivery continues to have a lower impact than that arising from walking to a traditional supermarket."

So it's factoring in the total cost of the two operations, including the bit where they decide to build a supermarket for you to walk to. The bit of the process where you actually walk to the supermarket and buy something is only the visible tip of the iceberg supporting all the other parts of the process, and its in those that the higher environmental costs lie.

But surely dispatching shopping to individual customers using small vans is less green than one lorry transporting everyone's shopping to one shop and then customers walking to the shop to buy it?

Ocado vans are green (coloured) though, aren't they?

Sorry, cross-posted with the explanation!

Well, apparently not, according to the people who know about these things and have actually looked at all the figures in detail. I'm sure the report is available somewhere if you want to double-check.

(and it's not as if one van leaves the warehouse, delivers to one customer, then drives all the way back to the warehouse, obviously)

I do keep meaning to check what Ocado use as bio-fuel, mind you, because if it's palm oil based then that's not exactly an ecologocal triumph even if the carbon emissions are lower...

Actually gaga, I sometimes get an orange one and sometimes a purple one and sometimes a green one. Vans that is. Tis always a lark guessing which colour is going to turn up.

Ah, OK "We are vigilant in avoiding palm oil derivatives and we are committed to buying biodiesel from vegetable fats produced by growers in the UK." according to their website. Which is good.

Puppy, if you give them your mobile number they will text you a few hours beforehand and tell you (among other things) what colour van is going to turn up.

Ooh really, Port. That would so ruin the surprise, though.

Those texts have become quite nauseating - "today Chris will deliver your shopping in lemon van". "Your shopping will be delivered by Pavel in courgette van". Don't call them lemon and courgette; I am not a child! It's too twee and Innocent Smoothiesesque.

They can't just say "green", though, because they have some with pictures of apples on and some with pictures of courgettes. If they just said "green" you might therefore be left not knowing what fruit or vegetable was pictured on the side of the van that delivered your shopping, and then what would happen to civilisation as we know it?

lemon van

courgette driver, couldn't find van

I'm not convinced that courgette is old enough to have a driving licence...

You know, it's just occurred to me that I have never checked that the van they say it's going to be is the van that comes. So when they say I'm getting apple van, I might actually be getting onion van, but I've not bothered to look! I feel all unsettled and a-quiver now.

no, but there again with average life expectancy of a courgette, they'd never get the chance to drive - poor things.

they don't deliver here.
are they horrendously expensive?
am waiting for our somerfields to become a co-op, this might be as ethical as we can get.

You'll be telling me next that you don't check the driver's birth certificate to make sure his name is really Chris... what kind of lax household are you running?

Oh god, my domestic life must be CHAOS. I must go and join the slatterns and sort it out. Right after I've had a Solero and another cup of tea (cold then hot - I'm aiming for a life of perfect balance, you see).

I've not signed up for the text messages, but I might do it now just so I can know the name of driver and if a courgette is on/off that day...

DS is always devastated if it is not the cabbage one.