Shop online -- save the earth

WASHINGTON -- Save the earth. Shop online.

That's the bumper sticker slogan suggested by a new study finding potentially significant environmental benefits as a consequence of the Internet and e-commerce.

The information economy heralded as undergirding a historically unprecedented era of high growth with zero inflationary pressures also promises to realize tremendous gains in energy efficiency, which in turn will reduce pollution, the analysis concludes.

Along with a new economy, the Internet is forging a new energy economy.

"The Internet economy could allow a very different type of growth than we have seen in the past," said Joseph Romm, director of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions and the lead author of the report.

"It means there is also a new energy economy that will have profound impacts on not only the environment, but also economic forecasting," said Romm, who formerly headed the Department of Energy's energy-efficiency program.

Strong growth -- except in pollution
The U.S. experienced economic growth of about 4 percent annually in 1997 and 1998, with efficiencies driven by information-technology companies playing a significant role in economic gains, according to the report.

"During those same two years, the nation's energy consumption -- the principal source of air pollution and gases linked to global warming -- hardly grew at all," the study said.

In the 10 years leading up to 1997, energy intensity -- or energy efficiency gains measured in terms of energy consumed per dollar of gross domestic product -- declined, that is improved, 1 percent annually.

But in 1997 and 1998, energy intensity declined 3 percent annually during a time of historically low energy prices, the study found.

That efficiency gain may account for why U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, increased only 0.2 percent in 1998, the lowest annual increase since 1991, a recession year.

The report cited studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggesting that current forecasts may be overstating by 5 percent the rate of growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, while underestimating overall U.S. economic growth, by failing to take into account these Internet-driven efficiency gains.

This would mean the U.S. would have an easier time meeting its mandate for reducing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto climate treaty.

More efficient delivery
As an example, the study's authors cite the efficiency gains of a consumer purchasing a book from online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN), rather than the neighborhood book store.

A warehouse can store more books per square foot than a retailer, while using much less energy per square foot of space. And shipping 10 pounds of books by overnight air uses 40 percent less fuel than a consumer's round-trip drive to the book store. The delivery truck uses just 10 percent of the energy equivalent of the consumer's car trip.

E-commerce means not only fewer shopping trips to the mall, but more workers eliminating energy-consuming commutes to the office by working from home offices, the study noted.

By 2007, e-commerce could eliminate the need for 1.5 billion square feet of retail space, or 5 percent of the U.S. total, and one billion square feet of warehouse space.

The Internet also holds the potential to eliminate up to two billion square feet of commercial office space -- the equivalent of 450 skyscrapers such as the Sears Tower in Chicago, according to the analysis.

The resulting energy savings would replace the output of 21 average-size power plants, preventing the release of 35 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Avoiding construction of those buildings equals the energy output of 10 more power plants, and another 40 million metric tons of climate-altering emissions, according to the study.

"The Internet can turn buildings into Web sites, and replace warehouses with supply-chain software. It can turn paper and CDs into electrons, and replace trucks with fiber-optic cables," Romm said.