Why ‘Instant Delivery’ Is Bad For Our Planet (And How This Ex-Macy’s Executive Is Fixing It)

In our latest Green Tech Pulse episode, we sat down with Mike Robinson, former EVP of Macy’s.com and founder of The Eighth Notch, to talk about a problem hiding in plain sight – the massive carbon footprint of our online shopping habits.

The Hidden Cost of Clicking “Buy Now”

Many of us shop online without thinking twice about what happens after we click “checkout.” The reality is that our addiction to fast delivery is creating an environmental crisis that’s growing by the day.

“Every time that delivery truck stops in front of your house, it’s 800 grams of CO2 that’s created,” Robinson explains. “When we talk about the billions of packages delivered annually, we’re talking about millions and millions of tons of CO2 that could be avoided if we just thought about the problem differently.”

Consider this shocking example from Robinson’s own experience: After leaving Macy’s, he ordered five basic white t-shirts. Those five shirts arrived from four different locations over three different days – creating three times the emissions necessary for a simple purchase.

Speed vs. Sustainability

The root of the problem is our collective obsession with delivery speed. While many retailers focus on sustainable packaging or greener products, few are addressing the environmental impact of how those products reach our doorsteps.

“I think we’ve all been conditioned to believe that getting it fast is good,” Robinson notes. “Amazon conditioned us to think fast was important. Then they conditioned us to think that Amazon Prime as a loyalty program gave us the illusion of free and fast. Well, it’s not free, and it’s not always fast.”

Interestingly, Robinson points out that Amazon itself is now shifting focus: “If you check out on Amazon, it’s not about speed first – it’s about sustainability. They’re starting to push that messaging quite a bit.”

The Solution: Synchronization, Not Speed

The Eighth Notch has developed an AI-based platform that tackles this problem through a surprisingly simple approach – synchronizing deliveries that are already heading to the same address.

“It’s determining when something should start its journey to allow it to connect with something throughout the entire delivery network,” Robinson explains. “Instead of the driver showing up on a Wednesday and a Thursday with a package each day, he’s showing up on a Thursday with two packages.”

This approach doesn’t require new vehicles or alternative fuels – it simply makes better use of existing delivery networks. By analyzing orders and delivery patterns, The Eighth Notch can identify opportunities to coordinate deliveries from different retailers or warehouse locations.

According to Robinson, they can find these synchronization opportunities about 15-20% of the time. When scaled up, the impact is significant: “100 million packages – if I’m able to impact that, I can take out 16,000 tons of carbon that is just never created.”

A Win-Win-Win Solution

What makes this approach particularly promising is that it benefits everyone involved:

For carriers: Delivery companies save money on operational costs by reducing stops and potentially even taking trucks off the road.
For retailers: Businesses receive financial incentives from carriers for participating, which Robinson notes “could be considered pennies of EPS (earnings per share)” – significant in an industry where margins matter.
For consumers: Customers get a more organized delivery experience with fewer interruptions and the satisfaction of making a more sustainable choice.
For the planet: Less carbon emissions without requiring massive infrastructure changes.

“We’ve created a three-way gain share model,” Robinson explains. “The carrier keeps a large piece, they share a piece with the retailer to change this behavior, and they give us a piece for doing all the analytics and driving that change at the retailer level.”

Beyond the Last Mile

While The Eighth Notch currently focuses on the “last mile” of delivery, Robinson sees potential for this synchronization approach to transform the entire supply chain.

“This small change that we’re making to affect final mile has ripple effects throughout the entire delivery process,” he explains. Carriers have told him that redistributing volume from high-demand days could help “smooth out the network” and reduce the need for overtime, extra planes, and additional trucks.

What Can We Do As Consumers?

While systemic changes are needed, Robinson suggests that consumers can help by rethinking our expectations around delivery:

Be more patient with delivery times when possible
Look for “sustainable delivery” options when shopping online
Consider consolidating orders rather than making multiple small purchases
Support retailers who prioritize sustainable delivery practices

The Road Ahead

Robinson believes we’re at the beginning of a significant shift in how we think about delivery and logistics. “Speed is not the only thing necessary. It’s the quality of the journey, the impact of the journey,” he says.

His vision for the future focuses on “thinking about the time from when it starts its journey to when it actually needs to get there” and finding more opportunities for synchronization – not just at the address level, but potentially at neighborhood, postal code, or even city levels.

For Robinson, the mantra is simple but powerful: “The route to the most sustainable mile is the one never driven.”

To learn more about The Eighth Notch, visit t8notch.com or connect with Mike Robinson on LinkedIn.

Listen to the full episode of Green Tech Pulse for more insights on sustainable logistics and the future of retail delivery.