- Wallapop presents its «Impact Model 2023,» a study aimed at helping its community to know the positive impact of the platform’s sales and purchases and continue to inspire a more conscious form of consumption.
- Thanks to the reusing of products on Wallapop, during 2023 its community avoided the emission of more than 524 thousand tons of CO2 emissions, and the consumption of almost 20 billion liters of water, more than 22 thousand tons of plastic, and 84 thousand tons of metal.
- According to Earth Overshoot Day, on May 20, Spain will have consumed all the resources that our country is capable of regenerating in a year.
The way we consume has an impact on the environment; at least 45% of global CO2 emissions come from linear production and consumption models, i.e., those based on extracting resources to manufacture new products that are later discarded as waste. This reality is unsustainable with the Earth’s replenishment capacity and, according to Earth Overshoot Day data, by May 20 Spain will have consumed all the resources that our country has the capacity to regenerate in a year.
Wallapop, the leading platform in conscious and humane consumption, in order to better understand the role it plays in the circular economy in the environment, wanted to quantify its impact and offer this information to its community in a simple way, with realistic and understandable analogies. According to the results, the buying and selling of reused products instead of new ones by the Wallapop community during 2023 has resulted in savings of:
- 524,000 tons of CO2 emissions, equivalent to driving 60,000 laps around the Earth’s equator.
- 19.7 billion liters of water, equivalent to 197 million 5-minute showers.
- 22.7 thousand tons of plastic, enough to make 162 million Barbies.
- 84.4 thousand tons of metal (16.6 thousand tons of aluminum and 67.8 thousand tons of steel), enough to build 8 Eiffel Towers.
All of this means environmental savings of €736 million, an amount that would be enough to reforest Doñana National Park 6.4 times, in addition to avoiding the creation of 31.9 thousand tons of waste, equivalent to filling 25 thousand garbage containers, practically the same amount as the ones in the city of Barcelona.
The data from the 2023 Impact Model show an average increase of 2% in the impact indicators analyzed compared to 2022, coinciding with a 26% increase in the company’s turnover, with more than 91 million euros in 2023, confirming that reusing is a growing trend.
To continue inspiring its community to generate a greater impact on the environment, the data from this study are included in the listings in the application since last year so that users can know the potential impact of each purchase and sale on Wallapop.
Economic savings and a change of model
According to the data analyzed by Wallapop together with Deloitte in its 2022 study, in 56% of the cases, the products listed on the platform would not continue to have a useful life if they did not change ownership, i.e., their owners planned to part with them or simply keep them at home unused.
Moreover, the Wallapop community also confirms that, in 81% of cases, their purchase on Wallapop has replaced that of a new product. This has generated for them total savings amounting up to 2.4 billion euros in 2023, the equivalent of launching 40 SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets into space. This means that the more than 19 million Wallapop users in southern Europe perceive an average saving of €362 per year.
«These data show how Wallapop is contributing to transform consumption patterns by encouraging product reuse, substituting the purchase of new products, economic savings for users, and greater environmental awareness,» said Pol Fàbrega, head of sustainability at Wallapop. «Making reused products the first choice of purchase is a necessary transition which we see permeate society more and more every day,» he concludes.
*Methodology: to make these calculations, more than 50 products representing 88% of total sales through Wallapop were selected, taking into account three differentiated variables:
- How many of these purchases actually replace that of a new product (the so-called «replacement rate»).
- The amount of resources and money that are saved when buying a reused item instead of making a new one.
- In the case of some products such as motor vehicles, washing machines, or refrigerators, what emissions their use has (to counterbalance the fact that older products may be less energy-efficient).
For the elaboration of this study, the replacement rate has been taken into account, which reflects how many reused products actually replace the purchase of a new product, or the impact of the use of some reused products, which are sometimes less efficient than their new counterparts.
This methodology was developed by Deloitte for Wallapop.