| Towards green e-commerce, sustainable development Cross-border e-commerce exhibition in Vietnam from August 10-12, 2023 |
Fast but unsustainable growth
According to a report by the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade), in the first 6 months of 2023, retail e-commerce revenue in Vietnam is estimated at 10.3 billion USD, an increase of about 25% over the same period, accounting for 7.7% of revenue from consumer goods and services nationwide.
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| Vietnam Post has paid attention to the green trend in postal delivery services. |
Although e-commerce is growing rapidly, it has revealed many unsustainable factors, especially the negative impact on the environment. At the recently held Order Fulfillment Forum 2023 - Towards Green E-commerce, Ms. Le Hoang Oanh - Director of the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy said: "In the field of online retail, the delivery stage such as: Vehicles running on the road, emitting a large amount of carbon; or the packaging stage of carton boxes, plastic packaging, foam boxes, disposable plastic products, etc. has had a significant impact on the environment".
Bringing two photos from two times ordering food to the forum, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hung - Senior Advisory Council on E-commerce, Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM), had to exclaim "too much plastic and nylon packaging". This is also the downside of the current fast consumption trend, which is being supported by e-commerce.
According to Mr. Hung, e-commerce has been developing quite rapidly in recent times with a growth rate of 25% per year. The market size is expected to reach 49 billion USD by 2025. However, it is time to think about sustainable e-commerce development.
Also giving an example at the forum, a shipping company said that for fragile orders, to meet customer requirements, the store asked the shipping unit to pack in multiple layers. This increased the amount of waste released into the environment. “Because of the high rate of dented goods, instead of using 3-layer cardboard, sellers have to use 5-layer cardboard. Not only scrap paper for lining, but also shockproof foam, and instead of sticking 2 lines of tape, they have to seal the box and seal the corners,” said a company representative.
Admitting that the situation of dented goods is the reason why sellers have to pack more carefully, Mr. Phan Trong Le - Head of Strategy and Branding, Vietnam Post Corporation (Vietnam Post) also admitted that in Vietnam, packaging standards are still poor. In developed countries, they regulate the size of packaging boxes, stores and shipping companies only need to buy and pack them into suitable products. But in Vietnam, each type of product is packaged differently.
The law on e-commerce has no “green” regulations
Sharing his experience in reducing waste in the packaging process, Mr. Vu Quoc Thinh - General Director of Lazada Logistics Vietnam said that the journey of an order from the manufacturer to the seller goes through 20 - 30 steps. Currently, goods are diverse but packaging standards are not many. Therefore, Lazada has used an automatic packaging size determination system to reduce waste. Use FSC-certified packaging or reuse cardboard boxes as padding material.
Vietnam Post is the first postal enterprise in Vietnam to use electric motorbikes in goods delivery. The unit currently has 100 containers on 2 fast container ships Hanoi - Binh Duong (2021), transporting about 300 tons of goods. Greening transportation activities helps Vietnam Post reduce CO2 emissions by about 8.8 times. For packaging activities, Vietnam Post prioritizes the use of paper bags, cloth bags, glass bottles and jars at more than 13,000 service points, digitizing documents and processes to minimize printing and paper use.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hung - said that currently, many businesses such as Lazada, Grab, Vietnam Post or some professional social organizations have paid attention to the green trend and have taken specific actions. However, for small and medium-sized transportation businesses, reducing emissions from packaging and transportation activities is still a big problem.
Above all, in the strategies for e-commerce development or even the relevant regulations on e-commerce law in Vietnam, there is not much attention paid to the provisions that goods manufacturing enterprises and e-commerce enterprises must comply with environmental requirements.
Agreeing with the view that the “green” factor is still absent in legal documents related to e-commerce in Vietnam, Mr. La Hoang Trung - Director of the Postal Department (Ministry of Information and Communications) said that in the postal development strategy until 2025, 5 goals and 8 solutions are set out, but the “greening” and “environmental protection” factors are not included in this strategy. “Recently, I attended the World Postal Forum, mainly developed countries such as France and the UK talked about green postal service, while in developed countries, this issue has not received due attention,” Mr. Trung said.
The Director of the Postal Department also said that he would propose to include green postal content in the law. However, to achieve immediate effectiveness, it is necessary to include environmental protection compliance in the licensing regulations for e-commerce businesses.
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