With Earth Day approaching (Saturday 22nd April), today we look at eBay Recommerce and how it’s impacted our planet, saving millions of tonnes of waste and greenhouse gas emissions.
Earth day is held annually event on the 22nd of April to demonstrate support for environmental protection. eBay has leaned into the concern many consumers have for our planet with refurbished tech, preloved fashion, motors parts and many more initiatives.
By mapping the weights and impacts of products for five different product categories (Electronics, Fashion, Lifestyle, and Parts & Accessories), eBay are able to calculate the avoided carbon emissions, avoided waste and financial savings for recommerce items sold on the marketplace. This established that in 2022, 20 million kg of waste was avoided through eBay buyers shopping preloved and refurbished on eBay with 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions avoided.
Fashion
Through shopping eBay’s pre-loved fashion buyers saved almost 2 million kg of waste was reduced, in other words, the weight of almost 5 million shirts. eBay also avoided over 63,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, swerving the equivalent of over 64,000 return flights between New York and London.
Tech
Due to the sheer amount of refurbished & used tech bought on eBay, over 250,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions emissions were saved from being released into the atmosphere, including over 13,000 on refurbished. It is equivalent to over 4 million new phones. Plus over 2.8 million kg of waste was avoided, equivalent to over 23.5 million phones being spared from landfill.
Home
Not only do vintage items add character to a space, but they’re also good for the planet. By buying refurb, used or vintage, over 6.5 million kg of waste was avoided—that’s equivalent to over 500 double-decker buses. As well as almost 30,000 tonnes of emissions avoided, which is 5,800 home’s electricity use for a year!
Motors
Recycled, refurbished and used finds saved the equivalent of almost 4,000 Formula 1 cars worth of waste—over 3 million kg! The impact didn’t stop there with over 20,000 tonnes of emissions cut, worth over 11,000 long-haul flights from London to Sydney.
The full report can be found in eBay’s Methodology to Calculate the Environmental and Financial Benefits of Recommerce.
2 Responses
no mention of the tons of bubble wrap cardboard and delivery miles,
not to mention the hot air that most ebay executives produce
Recently had a call with ebay for a account health check. Was more interested in trying to get me to pay more to use promoted listings and could tell not really interested in the call once said was not interested in using promoted listings. Guess if I don’t use promoted listing it would not go towards the reps sales targets and bonus.
When asking what are the chances of getting onto daily deals as have around 4 pallets of seconds stock coming in soon which would be ideal. Basically told, if you use promoted listing and pay us more money we might consider you.
No thanks when I pay over 18% to ebay I will stick with own website.