Delivering the Undeliverable: Fast Fashion, Last-Mile Logistics, and the Myth of Sustainable Consumption

Gilles Paché
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Gilles Paché: CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - UTLN - Université de Toulon

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Abstract: At a time when ultra-fast delivery, especially same-day delivery, has become a benchmark for overconsumption, last-mile logistics exposes fundamental tensions between operational performance and environmental and social sustainability. The rapid expansion of fast fashion, fuelled by platforms such as Shein and Temu, demonstrates that speed and efficiency generate apparent gains while aggravating urban congestion, increasing carbon emissions, and intensifying pressure on delivery workers. Technological solutions, including drones, autonomous vehicles, automated hubs, and artificial intelligence, often create the illusion of sustainable progress, yet the rebound effect neutralizes individual benefits and encourages even more frequent and fragmented consumption. Conventional approaches that focus solely on optimizing flows fail to address the structural drivers of overconsumption. This position paper advocates systemic rethinking of last-mile logistics, emphasizing the integration of sobriety, social equity, and durability into operational strategies. Deconsumption practices: pooling orders, extending product lifespans, promoting second-hand goods, and accepting longer delivery times, function as concrete levers for reducing delivery density while ensuring access to essential goods. Under this perspective, the last mile becomes a political and social arena, where the very conditions for sustainable consumption and urban well-being are being actively redefined, highlighting the limits of purely technical solutions.

Keywords: last-mile logistics; overconsumption; technology; ultra-fast delivery; fast fashion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-12
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05439781v1
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Published in Management of Sustainable Development, 2025, 17 (2), pp.133-144

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