ESG in e-commerce: logistics, returns and packaging

Quick answer. An e-commerce carbon footprint concentrates on three cost centres: last-mile delivery, product returns and packaging. These flows are also regulated: EPR schemes and eco-contribution, plus the ban on destroying non-food unsold goods in force since 1 January 2022. Steering them means crossing logistics data with management data.

Online retail has a particular environmental profile. Where a physical shop concentrates its impacts on the local store and its energy, e-commerce spreads them across a logistics chain made of individual deliveries, frequent returns and multiple packages. This article describes the three ESG cost centres specific to online retail and how to steer them with the right indicators, relying on management data rather than rough estimates.

Analysing an e-commerce carbon footprint brings out three dominant centres: downstream transport (delivery to the customer), product returns and packaging. These three flows share one trait: they can be steered from data the company already holds, namely order volumes, return rates and tonnes of packaging placed on the market.

It is precisely this crossover between ESG data and management data that enables action, rather than settling for a general speech about sustainability.

Last-mile transport is often the most emitting centre of the chain. Several levers exist: densifying rounds, offering pick-up points, optimising free-shipping thresholds to limit split deliveries, and choosing carriers committed to lower-emitting fleets.

Each lever affects carbon, but also cost. Raising a free-delivery threshold can cut the number of parcels and thus the footprint, while improving the margin. It is the textbook case of a trade-off where the ESG stake and the management stake point the same way.

Returns are the most costly specificity of online retail, especially in fashion. Each return mobilises extra transport, reconditioning and sometimes disposal. Cutting the return rate, through better product description, size guides or faithful photos, acts both on carbon and on the bottom line.

The accounting treatment of returns also deserves its own attention, which we detail in our article on the accounting treatment of returns and refunds. On the ESG side, the key is to measure the return rate by range and make it a steering indicator, on a par with the margin.

Packaging is both a carbon centre and a regulatory one. Under the household-packaging extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme, the company pays an eco-contribution to an eco-organisation, calculated on the tonnage placed on the market. This contribution is modulated: eco-modulation applies bonuses and penalties depending on whether the packaging is more or less recyclable and whether it includes recycled material.

Note for 2026: a new EPR scheme dedicated to professional packaging (industrial and commercial) comes into force, widening the scope beyond household packaging alone.

In e-commerce files, the frequent mistake is to treat ESG as a communication topic, disconnected from steering. Our conviction: the three centres (delivery, returns, packaging) are first of all cost centres. Optimising them for environmental reasons also improves the margin, which makes the approach sustainable over time.

An online retailer that tracks its return rate, parcel count and packaging tonnage already holds the essentials for a credible first carbon footprint, without any major extra project. The data exists; it mainly needs to be connected.

The most overlooked risk concerns unsold goods. Since 1 January 2022, the destruction of non-food unsold goods has been banned: they must first be reused or donated. An online retailer that destroys dormant stock, out of a simplifying reflex, now faces a sanction, on top of the carbon impact and the loss of value.

Good practice is to organise donation or clearance channels in advance, and to record these outflows in the accounts, rather than handling unsold goods in a rush at year-end.

On an e-commerce file, the accountant ties ESG to the figures:

• Measurement: building the indicators (return rate, parcel count, packaging tonnage) from existing management data.
• Eco-contribution: folding the cost of EPR schemes and the effect of eco-modulation into the cost price.
• Unsold goods: securing the accounting treatment and traceability of donations, in line with the destruction ban.
• Carbon footprint: laying the basis for a first footprint by scopes, as described in our article on the first carbon footprint of an SME.

This is the aim of our sector support e-commerce accountant and our CSR and CSRD sustainability reporting offer.

A fashion e-commerce records a return rate of 30 %. On 10,000 orders a month, about 3,000 come back. Estimating each return at 8 euros of transport and reconditioning, the centre represents nearly 24,000 euros a month, an annual cost close to 288,000 euros. By working on size guides and photos to bring the return rate down to 24 %, the company cuts the return volume by a fifth, a saving of around 57,000 euros a year, while lowering its transport footprint. The ESG lever and the margin lever merge.

• Professional-packaging EPR: check whether you fall within the scope of the new scheme from 1 January 2026.
• Eco-modulation: more recyclable packaging lowers the eco-contribution; this gain can be quantified.
• Unsold goods: organise donation channels, since destroying non-food unsold goods has been banned since 2022.
• Indicators tied to management: track return rate, parcels and tonnage as steering indicators, not just communication.