Shopping has become a cloak-and-dagger affair. Conspicuous consumption does not look good during a recession, which explains why so many of us are embracing e-commerce. Online shopping on these shores is projected to grow from sales of ￡8.9bn to around ￡21.3bn by the end of 2011.

    Often people proclaim they've embraced e-commerce because it's "green". This is understandable. If many shopping bags in a recession looks bad, bricks and mortar retail - huge out-of-town shopping centres, retail emporia that insist on leaving their doors open even in winter and grocery stores full of the most inefficient freezers - look terrible during an ecological emergency.

    Should we buy the idea that e-commerce is any better? Several studies have tried to answer this with cold, hard data.

    A 2000 study on Webvan, a now defunct US online grocer, concluded that a wider adoption of e-commerce would not give us environmental gains, while a 2002 study of US book retailing found no greater energy savings selling online. But the study that all e-tailers are talking about is a new one from Carnegie Mellon University, which has found that shopping online via Buy.com's e-commerce model for electronic products uses 35 per cent less energy consumption and CO2 emissions than a traditional bricks-and-mortar model.

    This is largely because it avoids the usual retail distribution model and, of course, the impact of consumers driving to a store （the average person drives 14 miles in total, to purchase three items）. And, from the shopper's perspective, online buying often allows you to avoid the ephemera of retail, like the 100m coat hangers that end up in landfill each year, or elongated till receipts. （Seek out shoeboxx.co.uk which allows you to organise all your receipts online, ultimately doing away with them.）

    But both models are flawed, because online or on the high street, retailers are dependent on a hydrocarbon-fuelled delivery system. Trucks deliver 4.8m tonnes of freight each day in the UK, which works out at about 80kg per person. To make matters worse, after a truck drops off the goods it often returns empty to the depot. A 2002 study of 20,000 haulage trips found that only 2.4% of return journey legs found suitable backloads. This journey represents a large part of the impact of what we buy.

    Online shopping may prove marginally more green in terms of energy saving （often a strategy that favours homogenised, multinational retail）, but we shouldn't forget progressive bricks-and-mortar retail. Places such as Ludlow in Shropshire, a fairtrade town based on ethical trading ideas, where the independent high street has been hard won. It brings consumers face to face with products with an equitable backstory, shortened supply chain and with values. This is a wiser and wider retail experience; anything else could leave you feeling short changed.

    購物已變成了一種隱秘的事情。在經濟蕭條期間，炫耀性消費看起來不大好，這便解釋了為什么我們有如此多的人紛紛采用電子商務模式。基于上述原因，預計到2011年底，網上銷售額預計將從89億英鎊增長到約213億英鎊。

    人們總聲稱他們熱衷于電子商務是因為它的"綠色環保".這是可以理解的。經濟衰退時期，如果還能看見大包小裹的購物袋算是糟糕的，那么，那些磚瓦和砂漿大樓里的零售業務在環境告急的時期看起來就可怕了。城鎮外的各大購物中心、即使在冬天仍舊堅持著開門營業的零售百貨中心、以及各家堆滿低效能冰箱的雜貨店都名列其中。

    我們該相信電子購物更好更環保嗎？有些研究已經試圖利用客觀確鑿的數據來回答這一問題。

    2000年，一項對Webvan（一家現已解散的美國在線雜貨商）進行的研究得出結論是，更廣泛地采用電子商務不會讓我們獲得環境收益，而 2002年進行的一項美國圖書零售研究則表明，網上銷售未能實現更大的能源節約。但是，目前所有的電子零售商關注的焦點成為了卡內基梅隆大學的最新研究內容，該研究發現，通過Buy.com的電子商務模式在網上購買電子產品時，與傳統的磚瓦商場銷售模式相比，能源消耗和二氧化碳排放不到35%.

    這主要是因為它避免了通常的零售分銷模式，當然，還有避免了消費者開車去商店帶來的影響（平均每人共駕駛14英里，購買三種產品）.從消費者的角度來看，在線購買常常可以讓您避免零售狂熱，如每年的百米外套衣架排到垃圾填埋場，或是一堆長長的收據。（查找shoeboxx.co.uk,你可以在線整理所有收據，最終消除它們。）

    但兩種模式都有缺陷，因為無論是在線還是在商業街上，零售商們都要依賴碳氫化合物燃料輸送系統。在英國，每天卡車都要運送480萬噸的貨運，大約人均消耗80公斤。更糟的是，一輛卡車卸下貨物后，往往要空車返回停車場。2002年，一項關于2萬次運輸行程的研究發現，只有2.4 %的回程能找到合適的返回裝載貨物。這樣的行程表明了我們購買是產生的一大部分影響。

    從節約能源看，網上購物可能略有較為綠色環保的性質（通常稱其為一項側重于均質跨國的零售戰略）,但我們不應該忘記現在有所進步的磚瓦大樓里的零售方式。像什羅普郡的魯德洛那樣的地區--一個基于道德交易想法的公平貿易城鎮，獨立發達的商業街已經來之不易。它使消費者們能直接而公平的看到產品及產品后的真實一面，縮短供應鏈和附加價值。這是一種明智而更廣泛的零售經驗；除此之外，還有什么可以讓你感到受騙呢。