Keeping e-Commerce Environmentally Friendly—What Consumers Can Do

By Miguel Jaller, Anmol Pahwa, Seth Karten | December 1, 2020 | Transportation and Climate Blog by UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies

With more states and individuals observing stricter limits on in-person shopping, and with holidays coming, what can we do to limit the environmental and societal impact of online shopping? And even beyond this moment, how do we minimize the harm—or maximize the benefit—of online shopping to society and life on our planet?
The short answer: Buy what we need, and do what we can to allow packages to be consolidated for the most efficient delivery routes, so the fewest miles possible are traveled for each package brought to the door.

So what does this mean for us as consumers? Factors that increase the number of items per vehicle mile of travel in a delivery or shopping trip will reduce the pollution and traffic impacts of our purchases. We should consider the following actions, when possible, to reduce the environmental impact of our online purchases:
1. Allow longer time windows for delivery whenever possible, even if we o not save out-of-pocket expenses for it.
2. Group orders together as much as possible by pooling orders into a single delivery and do not impose additional constraints on the delivery, such as specific days and times.
3. Minimize returns and consider buying clothing, shoes, and electronics in-person, as these have high rates of return from online shopping (clothing/shoes 56%, electronics 42%).
4. Avoid driving to the store to decide on—but not purchase—an item, and then ordering it online to save money, thereby increasing the miles traveled for one purchase.
5. For recurring purchases, take advantage of subscriptions, which can save money and allow the vendor to optimize planning and delivery.
6. Select, when possible, an alternative delivery location (e.g., pickup facility, lockers) at a place that you are already going to travel to, preferably by walking or biking.

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Community Seeks Aggie Square Partnership

By Genoa Barrow | September 28, 2020 | The Sacramento Observer

Aggie Square is described as a “game changing partnership” that will bring innovative opportunities to the area surrounding the UC Davis Medical Center on Stockton Boulevard. Local residents say they don’t want to be losers when the project, which will include the building of spaces for research facilities, academic programs, offices, retail and mixed-use space,and housing, kicks into gear.
Kim Williams, of Sacramento Building Healthy Communities says the Aggie Square project should benefit everyone in the surrounding area, not just a certain part of the population.
The Sacramento Building Healthy Communities: Community Development Action Team and Sacramento Investment Without Displacement (SacIWD) held a press conference at the Fruitridge Community Collaborative last week, demanding a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in the UC Davis Aggie Square project to ensure issues of affordable housing, jobs, healthcare access, and other issues are addressed in any major projects brought to the community.
SacIWD is a coalition of community organizations and neighborhood associations. Coalition members have been working together for almost two years and say the proposed Aggie Square project at UC Davis Medical Center “has the potential to improve and protect residents’ health, provide residents with access to good union jobs that pay a living wage, improve the quality of our neighborhoods, and reduce existing inequities.” Members want to make sure area residents in the 95817, 95820 and 95824 zip codes aren’t summarily boxed out, and priced out, by the Aggie Square project.
Community involvement topped a list of concerns.
“While neighborhoods surrounding Aggie Square will be altered by the many thousands of new workers and students at Aggie Square, with a recent estimate as high as 25,000, and the flow of billions of dollars, the traditional avenues of resident involvement will be weakened, and those communities already on the fringes are likely to be further silenced,” reads a statement from the group.
Concerns also include local hiring, affordable housing access, access to primary care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries, project labor, and local business protections and support.
“This is about building with our community,” HUB Director Kim Williams said.

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Councilmembers back call for community benefit ‘commitments’ on Aggie Square

September 18, 2020 | By Felicia Alvarez | Sacramento Business Journal

Two Sacramento city councilmembers, Jay Schenirer and Eric Guerra, are backing a call to prevent gentrification near Aggie Square.
Aggie Square is the University of California Davis’ planned satellite campus in Sacramento. The $1.1 billion, 25-acre project would fill land the university owns near Stockton Boulevard and Broadway with over 1 million square feet of research, wet lab, commercial space and housing.
https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2020/09/18/councilmembers-back-community-benefit-aggie-square.html

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A $1.1 billion project will mean thousands of jobs in Sacramento. Will renters be displaced?

By Theresa Clift | September 14, 2020 | The Sacramento Bee

Guadalupe Del Angel-Garcia moved into her North Oak Park apartment 14 years ago. Three years ago, her rent was about $800 a month. Now it’s $1,100.
The rent is increasingly difficult for her family to pay, especially since her husband was laid off from his restaurant job due to the coronavirus pandemic. But Oak Park is home. She’s lived there more than two decades and belongs to a close-knit community through her church.
When she heard about Aggie Square, a sprawling new project bringing thousands of jobs to the UC Davis Medical Center about a mile away, she was deeply concerned.

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Click here to learn how ECOS is involved in trying to get UC Davis to uphold the community development principles taught in their classes and make sure Aggie Square doesn’t cause more displacement in Sacramento’s underserved neighborhoods.

Image by Leroy Skalstad from Pixabay

As Trump Again Rejects Science, Biden Calls Him a ‘Climate Arsonist’

By Peter Baker, Lisa Friedman and Thomas Kaplan | September 14, 2020 | The New York Times

The Environmental Council of Sacramento was mentioned in the New York Times! Our Board President Ralph Propper was quoted regarding Trump’s denial of climate change as California burns.

Mr. Trump flew to California after weeks of public silence about the flames that have forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, wiped out communities and forests, burned millions of acres, shrouded the region in smoke and left at least 27 people dead. But even when confronted by California’s governor and other state officials, the president insisted on attributing the crisis solely to poor forest management, not climate change.
…
“Raking the leaves and forest floors is really inane. That doesn’t make sense at all,” said Ralph Propper, the president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento. “We’re seeing what was predicted, which is more extremes of weather.”

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Photo from publicdomainfiles.com.

Smoke still hurting Northern California air quality, but LNU Fire isn’t main culprit

By Michael McGough | August 31, 2020 | The Sacramento Bee

Smoke has sullied the skies in Northern California for two weeks, ever since dozens of large fires and hundreds of smaller ones sparked during a powerful thunderstorm that brought down thousands of lightning strikes.
For much of that stretch, Sacramento’s air pollution has come primarily from the LNU Lightning Complex, which as of Monday had scorched more than 375,000 acres in parts of Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Yolo and Lake counties west of the capital. That fire continues to output smoke as it is 63% contained, Cal Fire said Monday morning.
But now the poor conditions are coming from the August Complex, a 220,000-acre blaze that’s been burning in the Mendocino National Forest since Aug. 17, according to a special smoke statement issued Sunday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the mid Central Valley, which has since been extended through Tuesday.

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