Our positive impact on the environment (the amount of contribution to the environment created through Mercari’s business activities)
In clothing alone, approximately 480K tons of CO2 emissions avoided by transactions on Mercari2
This year, we calculated our positive impact exclusively for clothing categories1 for the first time, as the category type with the largest number of transactions on the service, and we found that users’ transactions on Mercari were able to avoid approximately 480K tons of CO2 emissions in 2021. This is equivalent to approx. 200 covered baseball stadiums.
In the last three years, we saw a total of approximately 1.4M tons of mitigated CO2 emissions in the clothing categories alone. We believe that we are steadily contributing to the creation of a circular economy while continuing to grow our business.
The positive impact of our Mercari marketplace business on the environment increases the more users use our service. As a result, the growth of our business itself helps solve environmental issues.
1. Calculated CO2 emissions avoided on the assumption that items from completed transactions in the Women’s, Men’s, and Kids’ categories for both Mercari JP and Mercari US from April 2019 to March 2021 are used in place of new items, using the LCA method.
Per-unit CO2 emissions for clothing taken from the Ministry of the Environment’s data. (Source: Ministry of the Environment “Results of Survey on Fashion & the Environment”) Also used the Ministry of the Environment’s data for estimates found in the results of our analysis of CO2 emissions for Mercari US.
Calculations looked only at the clothing categories as a first survey, since clothing makes up the largest volume of transactions on Mercari and the data was readily available. (Supervised by: Moon Dami, Project Researcher at The University of Tokyo’s Value Exchange Engineering Social Research Division) As a long-term project, we plan to continue to research the environmental impact of secondhand item use for each manufacturing category.
2. CO2 equivalent to one covered baseball stadium: 2,436 t-CO2 (covered baseball stadium volume: 1.24M KL; 1 mol = 22.4 L = 44 g-CO2; Source: Tokyo Dome)
Approximately 59K tons of clothing in Japan each year is able to find a new happy home after being listed on Mercari1.
Additionally, users avoided approximately 42K tons of clothing waste (by weight) by listing items on Mercari JP instead of throwing them away.
This is approximately 8.8% of the total 480K tons2 of clothing thrown away yearly in Japan.
By buying and selling clothing that is no longer worn on Mercari instead of throwing it away, users can reduce the burden on the environment and move closer to creating a circular economy.
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1. Calculated based on the number of items listed in the Women’s, Men’s, and Kids’ categories for both Mercari JP and Mercari US from April 2021 to March 2022. Weight of clothing taken from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s data. (Source: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry “Survey on Measures to Revitalize the Textile and Clothing Industry”) Also used the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s data for weight of clothing for Mercari US. 2. Source: Ministry of the Environment, “Sustainable Fashion”</small>