E-tail boom hurts air quality in key London shopping area

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Dec 5, 2016

The boom in online shopping is damaging London’s air quality and especially the West End shopping area. And the situation is worse at Christmas, according to a report from the New West End Company (NWEC), which is urging workers to rethink how they manage their online shopping habits this Christmas shopping season.

Air quality is a year-round issue for the West End. In 2015, Oxford Street breached the annual limit on NO2 emissions in the first four days of the year.

NWEC conducted research in conjunction with ARUP and Cross River Partnership (CRP) that showed 40% of the total items delivered to West End businesses are workers’ personal parcels. This figure jumps to 60% over the peak festive season (in November and December) as online spending ramps up during the run-up to Christmas.

Barclaycard research also showed that 40% of online shoppers choose to have their purchases sent to their professional address, with 8% of people receiving deliveries to their workplace on a daily basis.

The West End’s 150,000-strong workforce therefore means 12,000 parcels are estimated to be delivered to the area every day. The volume of vehicles required to facilitate this is a key contributor to the poor air quality in London’s key shopping district.

Road freight transport is now responsible for 36% of NOx emissions in London and 39% of PM10 exhaust emissions, according to Transport for London.

NWEC is encouraging workers to click-and-collect their online purchases or use services such as Parcelly, HubBox and Doddle that provide consolidated deliveries to convenient locations for consumers.