Grocery Delivery or Customer Pickup—Influences on Energy Consumption and CO₂ Emissions in Munich

The number of supermarkets offering grocery delivery has increased in recent years. Many studies conclude that CO₂ emission savings result from this concept. Since the delivery of groceries also consumes energy and produces emissions, break-even points can be calculated, where the delivery is environmentally beneficial compared to customer pickup. In this paper, influences of differing vehicle use on break-even points for savings of energy and CO₂ emissions are analyzed for the case of Haidhausen Süd, a district in Munich, Germany. Internal combustion engine and electric vehicles are investigated to depict current as well as future trends. After an introduction to the methodology used, the potential to save energy and CO₂ emissions related to the delivery of groceries in the chosen district of Munich are evaluated. Subsequently, influences on the break-even points are presented and discussed. As the results show, a delivery of groceries leads to energy and carbon dioxide savings in a wide range of private vehicle use for grocery shopping trips. Nevertheless, if the complete customer vehicle fleet is electrified, the use of delivery vehicles with an internal combustion engine could cause an additional environmental impact at the current modal split for shopping trips in Germany. View Full-Text