Black Friday exposes dark side of trucking

(Transport and Environment, 21 Nov 2022) Trucks are massive climate polluters, and the emissions from trucking retail goods spike 94% during Black Friday week, T&E analysis finds. But there is a solution.

Black Friday is notorious for peak consumerism and waste. But the true cost of the headline grabbing discounts is also paid in the climate impact of moving all that extra freight on our roads. Trucking retail goods is a dirty business and that business spikes massively around Black Friday. It’s maddening because there’s a ready-made solution to slash the climate impact of trucks – if only regulators would send the right signal to truckmakers to start using it.

To quantify the truck pollution impact of the Black Friday phenomenon, T&E analysed historical sales data to estimate the additional demand created by Black Friday. We then converted that into truck activity and calculated the associated emissions[1]. The results dramatically highlight the huge climate impact trucks have, not just during the week of Black Friday, but each and every week.

During this year’s Black Friday week, 1.2 million tons of CO2 will be released in the air by trucks transporting our packages to warehouses and stores around Europe. That’s almost 600,000 tons extra, or a whopping 94% more than in an average week.

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Transport and Environment, 21 Nov 2022: Black Friday exposes dark side of trucking