Save The Environment AND Your Wallet With These Amazon Shopping Tips

Amazon gets a bad rap from a sustainability perspective. Yes, there are some clear issues with their climate policies, however the company has made many actionable steps toward reducing environmental harm.

With that said, Amazon can only go so far on its own. It is still up to us as consumers to use Amazon efficiently and effectively in order for us to reduce our own environmental footprint. Here are six ways you shop more sustainably on Amazon (and even save some money in the process).

1) Buy Products In Batches

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Imagine there was a supermarket nearby that had every item you could hope for: food, furniture, electronics, you name it. Now imagine you had to make a separate trip every time you wanted to buy just one product from that store: maybe you'd still shop there, but you'd definitely hate the hassle of driving to and from the store and spending all that money on gas.

This is ostensibly the proposition that Amazon provides, only it removes us from the equation of having to drive to and from the store every time. While this is great from a user experience level, it's not so great for saving gas. That's why in order to improve our sustainability footprint, we should buy items in groups rather than ordering items individually. It requires fewer trips to our doorstep, thereby requiring less emissions.

2) Use Slower Shipping (It Can Even Save You Money!)

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The faster the shipping speed, the less efficient the shipping. It's as simple as that. Giving Amazon a longer window to ship our items gives the company more time to group items together, thereby resulting in less wasted space on shipping vessels.

Amazon even has several incentives to promote slower shipping, allowing you to save both money and the environment. One such incentive is its "No-Rush Shipping" service, whereby if you opt for slower shipping, Amazon will give you a $1-$3 digital reward credit for Kindle Books, Prime Video rentals, music, or app purchases. Chain enough of these together and you can get a new eBook or movie night rental for free, all while cutting back on emissions.

And then there's your Amazon Day Delivery, which groups all of your purchases together onto one specific day of the week of your choice. Recently (and until the end of 2023), Amazon has started giving an extra 1% cash back If you select Amazon Day Delivery and pay for the purchase with a Prime Credit Card (which should be a no-brainer if you have Amazon Prime). However even without this bonus, Amazon Day Delivery is a great way to reduce your emissions.

3) Look For The Climate Pledge Friendly Banner

One of Amazon's best kept secrets is its Climate Pledge Friendly banner, which it gives to products with one of 50+ trusted environmental certifications. These include, but are not limited to: USDA Organic, Carbon Neutral by Carbon Trust, Energy Star, Fair Trade Certified, and many more. Purchasing an item with one of these certifications helps ensure the product you're buying was produced with the environment in mind.

Let's say you are searching for wood hangers. Chances are you don't have strong opinions over which brand you want, so you search "wood hangers". If you look at the filters on the left-hand side, you'll see a checkbox that says "Climate Pledge Friendly". If you click that, Amazon will filter in only products with one or more of the Climate Pledge Friendly certifications.

Often these climate-friendly products are a similar price to the climate not-so-friendly options, making it an easy choice. If you want to learn more about the included certifications or want to begin your search by looking for Climate Pledge Friendly products, you can do so here.

4) Buy Products That Last

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We unfortunately live in quite a throwaway culture, where we buy cheap products that break quickly rather than paying a premium for more expensive products that last a long time. But the single best way to reduce your footprint is simply to do more with less, which can be achieved by purchasing high-quality products rather than buying replaceable lower-quality products.

Let's go back to our hangers example. Sure you can buy a 50-pack of plastic hangers for $20, and they'll probably last you a good amount of time. But they'll likely break, meaning you'll not only have to replace them, but you'll also have to throw out the broken hangers, contributing to waste over time.

Instead, you can go on Amazon and find a 20-pack of wooden hangers for $20: while they're 2-3x more expensive, they are also much sturdier and will therefore last you much longer without breaking, reducing the need to keep replacing them (bonus points that wood is generally a more renewable material than plastic).

If you buy products with the mentality that you will use it as long as you can, you will be saving the planet and your wallet. This is probably most evident in the clothing industry, where fast fashion has bred a culture of buying inexpensive clothes that are cheaply made and thus do not last nearly as long as higher-quality clothes which may cost more at first, but over time are actually cheaper due to not needing to replace them as often.

5) Return Items Sparingly

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One of Amazon's best features is its robust return policy, which allows you to make returns - often even after having used the product - within a month or two of purchase.

While this makes for an easy consumer experience, it wreaks havoc on the environment, as it doubles the transportation impact of getting that product where it needs to go. (As a side note, returns also generally hurt the seller as well, forcing them to eat the shipping costs.) Limiting your returns helps to manage this impact.

Of course, everyone will need to return items at some point or another, so I am certainly not trying to tell anyone not to make returns. But don't just overly buy products just because you know you can return them later: instead, buy what you think you want or need, and then return the product if it doesn't meet your expectations for whatever reason.

6) If You See It In Stores, Just Buy It There

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If you already happen to be in a brick-and-mortar store and there's a product you want, don't wait to buy it on Amazon for a marginally lower price. The environmental toll has already been taken to get the product to that store, so there's ultimately no reason to add yet another environmental toll by ordering the product to Amazon and making a truck deliver it to you when you could have just picked it up off the shelves.