WELL, YES: Study: Ordering Groceries Online Is Greener Than Driving To The Store. “The basic intuition here is that a truck or van packed with groceries delivering to eight different houses can, in theory, use a lot less fuel than eight different cars all driving from home to the store and back again.”

I wrote about this nearly a decade ago. “I order a lot of things from the Web specifically because it saves me the hassle of venturing out into traffic to visit stores, but when I avoid that hassle I avoid burning gas, too. True, the delivery truck burns gas — but it’s delivering to a lot of other homes at the same time it’s delivering to mine, so overall it winds up using considerably less per person than if everyone shops individually.” I should’ve applied for a grant.