Energy Burdens of Conventional Wholesale and Retail Portions of Product Life Cycles

E‐commerce is often cited as offering the potential to reduce wholesale and retail burdens within product life cycles; however its potential impacts upon transport may be positive or negative. But the relative environmental importance of wholesale and retail trade and their intervening transportation links within product life cycles has not been generally characterized. The objective of this research was to assess the upstream (preusage) life‐cycle energy burden shares associated with retail trade and wholesale trade using input‐output life‐cycle assessment (IO LCA) with a special focus on the electronic computers sector.