Building Greener Businesses
All of our core businesses seize on the efficiencies of the internet, empowering people to do more with less. Whether it's shopping without driving to the mall or paying without a paper check, we believe that increasing business efficiency can also deliver environmental benefits, just in the course of everyday operation.
At our core, our businesses are green businesses.
eBay — Extending the useful life of products
The world's largest online marketplace truly is a smart way to shop green. Through the eBay community, an estimated $100 billion in goods have been reused since 1998 — extending the useful life of products, keeping unwanted items out of landfills and reducing the need for the raw materials necessary to manufacture new items.
We help our customers make smarter, greener choices by providing thoughtful tools and solutions. In 2007 and 2008, for example, we offered a seminar for eBay buyers and sellers at eBay Live! about "greening" their businesses.
One of the largest environmental impacts of our business model is the shipping that occurs between sellers and buyers. So, in 2007, we worked with the United States Postal Service to introduce new, environmentally friendly Priority Mail packaging. This co-branded packaging is Cradle-to-Cradle certified, and is available free through the USPS shipping hub on eBay.com. You can find more information in our Sell Green section.
PayPal — Paperless transactions
It's the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service allows users to pay without sharing financial information and gives consumers flexibility to pay through account balances, bank accounts or credit cards. With more than 70 million active accounts in 190 markets and 19 currencies around the world, PayPal enables global ecommerce.
PayPal balance-funded payments, which are payments transacted as a transfer of funds between PayPal account holders, generate fewer greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) than similar transactions made through banking and credit card companies because of reduced technological infrastructure and the fact that they're paper-free, according to a study conducted by the for-profit social venture firm Cooler and commissioned by eBay.
Kijiji — Online classifieds for household items
eBay's free online classifieds site, it offers a quick, easy way for local buyers and sellers to connect. Buying and selling in the same area is a great way to extend the useful life of large, hard-to-ship household items, like kitchen appliances, washer/dryers, grills and much more, while minimizing the transportation cost and impact in getting the item to you.
When consumers decide to upgrade, they're often unsure about what to do with an old item that is still in great shape. Kijiji allows buyers and sellers to connect and give items a second life, helping products from ending up in a landfill, and truly keeping things in the community.
StubHub — Supporting green initiatives
The world's largest ticket marketplace, it enables fans to buy and sell tickets to tens of thousands of sports, concert, theater and other live entertainment events.
In 2009, StubHub ran a program called "Tickets for Trees," which planted a tree for every ticket purchased on StubHub for the 2008–09 NFL post-season. In partnership with the National Forest Foundation (NFF), StubHub has planted trees in National Forests across the U.S. near cities hosting playoff games, as well as in the Ocala National Forest near Tampa, Florida, site of Super Bowl XLIII. To date, StubHub has helped to plant 45,000 trees!
