Carbon emissions from urban takeaway delivery in China

IF 9.1 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES npj urban sustainability Pub Date : 2024-07-31 DOI:10.1038/s42949-024-00175-8

Yiqiang Zhong, Shenghui Cui, Xuemei Bai, Wei Shang, Wei Huang, Lingxuan Liu, Shouyang Wang, Rongxuan Zhu, Yuanxiao Zhai, Yin Zhang

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Abstract

Online food delivery has become a popular mode of urban food consumption in China as its underlying business mechanism, Online To Offline (O2O), gaining popularity. However, the environmental impacts of a rapidly expanding online food delivery industry and its potential to mitigate environmental burdens remained unexplored in China. Our research found that Chinese cities generated 1.67 MtCO2-equivalent (CO2e) from 13.07 billion times of deliveries in 2019, including transport and packaging. The transportation-related GHG emissions were 745 KtCO2e in 2019, with an average of 0.057 kg CO2e per order and an average of 0.011 kg CO2e per capita. These emissions have surged from 0.31 MtCO2e in 2014 to 2.74 MtCO2e in 2021. We predict that this figure will increase further to 5.94 MtCO2e by 2035. However, with a range of policies such as replacing motorcycles with electric bikes and optimizing traffic routes, it is possible to mitigate such GHG emissions by 4.39–10.97 MtCO2e between 2023 and 2035. These findings highlight the need for further research into the environmental impact of online food delivery and the potential for mitigating it.

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中国城市外卖配送的碳排放量

随着其基本商业机制 "线上到线下（O2O）"的普及，网上送餐已成为中国城市食品消费的一种流行模式。然而，在中国，快速扩张的在线餐饮外卖行业对环境的影响及其减轻环境负担的潜力仍有待探索。我们的研究发现，2019 年中国城市 130.7 亿次配送产生了 167 万吨二氧化碳当量（CO2e），其中包括运输和包装。2019 年，与运输相关的温室气体排放量为 745 千吨 CO2e，平均每单 0.057 千克 CO2e，人均 0.011 千克 CO2e。这些排放量从 2014 年的 0.31 MtCO2e 猛增至 2021 年的 2.74 MtCO2e。我们预测，到 2035 年，这一数字将进一步增至 5.94 MtCO2e。然而，通过采取一系列政策，如用电动自行车取代摩托车、优化交通路线等，2023 年至 2035 年期间的温室气体排放量有可能减少 4.39-10.97 兆吨 CO2e。这些研究结果突出表明，有必要进一步研究在线食品配送对环境的影响以及缓解这种影响的潜力。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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npj urban sustainability

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