The Dark Side of Discounts: The Environmental Footprint of Black Friday

Every year, as Black Friday approaches, the world prepares for what has now become a global ritual of hyper-consumption. Retailers celebrate record-breaking sales. Shoppers boast about the “unmissable” deals they grabbed. But amid the noise of promotional emails and shopping carts filling at unprecedented speeds, what is not discussed is the fact that these sales are accelerating unsustainable consumption at a scale our planet cannot absorb. What looks like a celebration of affordability is in reality a spike in resource use, emissions, and waste that pushes us further from our climate and circularity goals.

Consumption Fueled by Discounts, Not Necessity

In 2025, global online Black Friday spending surged to US $79 billion, roughly 6% higher than the previous year. In the United States, the number hit US $11.8 billion — a 9.1% jump. These figures are astonishing not because they reflect rising purchasing power, but because they reflect something far more worrying: the growing power of sales psychology.

Seventy-one percent of global shoppers say deals are their primary motivation — not need. The “fear of missing out” pushes people to buy things they did not plan to buy, do not need, and often will barely use. The result is not improved well-being, but inflated wardrobes, overstuffed cupboards, and millions of impulse purchases with short lives and long environmental footprints.

The Planet Pays the Price

The retail and consumer-goods sector already accounts for a quarter of global emissions, and the sales rush amplifies this impact sharply. Deliveries linked to Black Friday alone have been estimated to release 429,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gases — emissions comparable to hundreds of transatlantic flights.

The waste is staggering. In the UK, packaging waste from Black Friday can reach up to 700,000 tones in a single year. But what is worthy to note is that up to 80% of items purchased during Black Friday are discarded or minimally used before being landfilled, burned, or poorly recycled.

In essence, Black Friday reinforces a throwaway culture — where value is measured not by longevity or necessity, but by short-term gratification and artificially low prices.

The Hidden Burden on Supply Chains

The environmental impact isn’t confined to what we throw away. It begins long before the sale.

Every item purchased — whether it’s a discounted TV, fast-fashion outfit, or gadget — carries an upstream trail of extraction, manufacturing energy, transport emissions, and water use. When Black Friday demands a sudden surge in supply, manufacturers accelerate production, sometimes at the expense of environmental safeguards.

Fast fashion and electronics, the biggest Black Friday favorites, are also the most resource-intensive, with extremely short use cycles. The annual sales boom reinforces an economic model built on excess: produce fast, sell cheap, discard quickly.

Moving from the Culture that normalizes Overconsumption

Black Friday’s biggest challenge is not the emissions spike or packaging waste — it is the cultural shift it normalizes. Black Friday makes unnecessary purchases seem rational and even responsible (“it was 70% off!”), as well as dilutes public understanding about sustainable consumption. There is a need to rethink the story around discounts and sales by reframing value.

This means the need to create a narrative that promotes need-based buying, not hype-based buying and encourages products that last, not those designed to fail. Repair, reuse, and resale, must become values while transparent supply chains and responsible retail practices that recognize end-of-life responsibility. Additionally policies must discourage overproduction and regulate marketing tactics built on manipulating consumer anxieties.

Governments and businesses both have a role to play — but so do individuals. Each purchase is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.

The Real Cost of a “Good Deal”

Black Friday may promise unbeatable bargains, but the true cost of those bargains is paid elsewhere: in emissions, in landfills, in degraded ecosystems, and in compromised futures.

If we are serious about staying within planetary boundaries, we must reconsider the role these mega-sales play in our consumption habits.

The best deal we can make with the future is not another discounted purchase, but a commitment to thoughtful consumption, circularity, and restraint. Only then can we hope to build an economy — and a culture — that truly values the planet as much as price.