Can Black Friday Go Green? The Environmental Cost of Excess Consumerism
It feels like 2024 is flying by! Fall is just around the corner, and hot on its heels is the annual holiday season. There was a time when overconsumption over the holidays simply meant drinking too many cocktails and eating too much turkey during the Thanksgiving feast.
But in the consumerist society we live in, it has come to mean something else entirely. In the midst of our traditional holidays, a couple of new shopping holidays have sprung up—Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While they might be good for businesses, they aren’t as great for the planet.
Shopping Holidays: A Way To Celebrate Consumption
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two occasions when it feels like nearly every person you know has turned into a shopaholic. Retailers have cultivated an annual frenzy of consumption by turning the Friday and Monday after Thanksgiving into once-a-year shopping extravaganzas.
With limited-time offers, deep discounts, and free giveaways, these two shopping holidays have created a scenario where consumers feel like they must make a purchase or risk missing out on the best deals.
Every year, the number of consumers participating in this retail bonanza climbs even higher. Last year, 74% of US consumers reported shopping on Black Friday. When counting both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, that figure went up to 87%. That’s over 200 million consumers generating billions of dollars in sales, both online and in-person, over a single, four-day weekend!
How Black Friday and Cyber Monday Came To Be
Things weren’t always the way they are now. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are fairly recent additions to our holiday calendar, with Black Friday being the older one. The term “Black Friday” was coined by exasperated police officers in Philadelphia. They used it in the 1950s to refer to the crush of consumers who descended upon the city during the post-Thanksgiving weekend.
Eventually, retailers wanted to put a positive spin on the ominous-sounding name. Over time, Black Friday changed from being a day when retailers operated at a loss (being in the red) to turning a profit (being in the black). By the mid-1980s, Black Friday fever had spread across the nation as retailers capitalized on the increased traffic and demand that came with the holidays.
Cyber Monday has a more straightforward origin. It was an initiative pushed by the National Retail Federation to promote the use of e-commerce among consumers. The principle was the same as Black Friday—offering deep discounts, except the stores were all online. The first Cyber Monday was held in 2005.
Today, the line has blurred between the two since online shopping takes place on Black Friday as well. In fact, the retail frenzy is no longer limited to these two days. Retailers have started making tempting offers throughout November so that consumers can complete their holiday shopping during this festival of consumption.
Environmental Impact of Black Friday and Cyber Monday Shopping
Shopping holidays like Black Friday are opportunities for consumers to find the best deals and for retailers to enjoy high sales. With the advent of online shopping, a new dimension has been added to the mix. Excessive consumption over the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend has led to negative environmental consequences.
Let’s examine how the search for the best prices has a higher cost than we realize.
1. Excess Packaging
When retailers ship customers their online orders, the products aren’t the only thing they’re sending. Every order comes with its own packaging, and most of this packaging material is non-biodegradable plastic.
These environmentally harmful materials are also responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions related to e-commerce, accounting for 45% of all emissions.
Black Friday is marked by a spike in online orders. In 2022, the number of online transactions made on Black Friday was 13% higher than average. With this increase comes a corresponding spike in the amount of packaging material being used. These single-use plastics end up in landfills or poorly managed recycling plants, harming the environment.
2. Fuel Consumption
While in-store shoppers take their Black Friday hauls back with them, online orders on Black Friday and Cyber Monday require the retailer to ship them to the customer. That means burning fuel to reach the end consumer, which in turn increases the amount of CO2 emissions linked to each purchase.
A 2023 report found an average of 420,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gasses released over a single Black Friday. Burning fossil fuels at this scale only accelerates our planet’s environmental decline, giving us another good reason why Black Friday isn’t a sustainable holiday.
3. Waste Generation
One of the worst aspects of Black Friday and Cyber Monday is they encourage impulse buying among consumers. Once the holiday cheer lifts, these consumers second-guess their purchases. According to one consumer survey, 52% of Black Friday shoppers regret their purchase after the weekend. Another report found that as many as 80% of all products purchased on Black Friday are treated as disposable and are quickly discarded after a few uses.
This leads to more environmental problems. Consumers returning their products increase the carbon footprint by requiring an additional journey to ship the products back to warehouses. Discarded products combined with packaging waste fill up landfills, leading to a 25% increase in US waste generation between Black Friday and the New Year.
Regain Control Over Black Friday With These Small Steps
Among the many types of goods sold on Black Friday, electronics and fashion products are the most popular. Unfortunately, these can also be the most harmful. The fast fashion industry in particular has come under scrutiny for using exploitative labor practices and non-sustainable materials in their products.
This year, Black Friday will fall on November 29. If you’re participating in this shopping festival, follow a few simple steps to ensure you aren’t egregiously harming the environment. Remember these tips for this year’s Black Friday:
Avoid unnecessary or impulse purchases. Only buy what you really need.
Stay away from fast fashion brands that use ethically and environmentally suspect business practices.
Support small, local retailers over industry giants like Amazon.
Remember the four Rs: reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle.
Participate in Black Friday alternatives, like Buy-Nothing Day or Giving Tuesday.
Some retailers have turned their backs on the overconsumption that Black Friday represents. However, as long as the majority of retailers continue to chase record-breaking sales figures, we must find other ways to mitigate the impact of all the shopping that takes place on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.