Depending on who you ask, the holiday shopping season is either coming or already underway. And even though I’m old school and enjoy going out to physical stores, I know many people would rather shop from home, online.

This can mean dozens of deliveries to your door, each with its own carbon footprint. Every method of shopping has its environmental drawbacks, but we can make online shopping a little greener with a small bit of organization and simple planning.

Consolidate Orders

Imagine if you went to Target, got a shirt, went through checkout, went back for a toy, checked out, went back for a book, checked out…. Dumb, right?! But that’s essentially what we do with online shopping.

Instead of placing an order every few days, consider combining orders into a single shipment. This may mean leaving items in your shopping cart for a bit until you’re sure you’r ready to check out. This will reduce your carbon footprint by tamping down the travel miles needed to ship and deliver your purchases.

Shipping

If you’re like me, you might be used to running behind schedule, needing to have things done in a hurry when you finally get to doing them. In shopping terms, this means needing the overnight delivery option because time is short.

But, if we can avoid this, we can save money and shop greener by choosing the cheapest, slowest delivery method available. Plus, life will be less stressful because we’ll have taken care of business before the last minute. Good for us, and good for the planet.

This article is part of a series called RebEarth, featured on the Five O’Clock Shadow blog.  Follow and subscribe to Five O’ Clock Shadow and Wise & Shine Magazine for more stories by Todd Fulginiti.

For Todd Fulginiti musician, visit Todd Fulginiti Music.