Total emissions from food-delivery mopeds across Sweden can be estimated at 5,000 to 20,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year, although efforts are underway to electrify. Automation and expansion create various other health and worker wellbeing challenges, however.
By Jonathan Michael Feldman, July 26, 2025
Between Direct Filthy Pollution and Automated Pedestrian Displacement Mechanisms
This summer I got gassed more than once by a passive food delivery motor bike. The definitive essay by Maria Mutt, was published in Dagens Nyheter, ”Stoppa stinkande mopeder på cykelvägarna,” on January 24, 2021, about four and a half years ago. Nothing much has changed.
The Environmental Reality of Food Delivery Pollution
It is true that all (or almost all) of the workers who delivery food come from the Global South and are part of the precariat, i.e. marginalized workers who get paid very little and must work at jobs that are low status and not particularly meaningful (although delivering food is probably more meaningful than other jobs). I fail to understand, however, other than pure greed, why these companies insist on using gas guzzling motor bike. I also read some of the commentary on Mutt’s essay which involved rage against any critique of these gratuitous filth spreading motor bikes. I attribute this rage to what might be called an ecocidal character structure and elements of a will to embrace commerce and consumer narcissism at any cost. During the pandemic, such food delivery vehicles serviced persons in need, albeit at the potential risks to the drivers who had to perform tasks in a pandemic and could not hide behind computer screens. As for those who are infirm or have special challenges in gaining food, one would think that a clean, public service would be a useful substitute.
The environmental impact extends far beyond local air quality concerns. Charlene Li, Miranda Mirosa, and Phil Bremer published an analysis of the ecological impacts of online food delivery systems (FD) in the journal Sustainability, Vol. 12, No. 14, 2020. They reported that online FD creates a “massive carbon footprint.” They write: “In a 2019 study in China, focusing on the life cycle impact assessment of packaging from online FD, the data from 35.61 million orders from one online FD platform across eight cities was assessed in conjunction with 334 sets of packaging samples from the restaurants, including boxes, bags, chopsticks, cups and straws, etc. Taking Beijing as example, the authors discovered that online FD produced 0.1185kg of waste solids and 0.68 kg CO2 eq/kg Global Warming Potential (GWP) from each order and that the manufacturing and disposal of packaging, accounted for 45% and 50% of the total environmental impact, respectively, making these the major environmental impacts across the whole industry.”
The Automation Alternative: Trading Workers for Robots
We know that some of these food companies like Foodora are exploring clean, robotic alternatives that would eliminate the workers and the direct (as opposed to indirect) pollution generated by food delivery trucks (see Plate 1). The pollution aspects of automation was noted by Proven Robotics: “Manufacturing, maintaining, and running robotic systems require energy, and depending on the source of that energy, it may contribute to a business’s carbon footprint.” The robots are a potential anti-pedestrian nuisance as this video shows. Earlier this year, Foodora announced a partnership with Starship Technologies: “Starship robots, which have completed over 7 million deliveries worldwide.” A report in March explained “the fleet currently consists of 15 robots limited to Södermalm, Solna, and Sundbyberg. But the plan is to expand.” Nevertheless, the very same company still uses the gas guzzling vehicles (Plate 3).
There are various disadvantages associated with automation within the food industry. One assessment in Proven Robotics argued: “In industries heavily reliant on manual labor, such as food processing plants, the sudden introduction of robots may lead to a surge in unemployment. The economic fallout from mass job losses can extend beyond the individual workers to impact entire communities. Furthermore, the initial investment required for implementing robotic systems may pose a financial burden on smaller businesses, potentially widening the economic gap between large and small enterprises.”
While some companies are exploring robotic solutions, others are pursuing electrification strategies. Uber Eats also claims to support electrification. In 2020, the company announced “a global goal to become a zero-emission mobility platform by 2040.” At the end of 2025, they hoped that “100% of rides in London and Amsterdam are zero-emission.” One report by Ben Hubbard in Zag Daily, July 11, 2023 claims: “Uber Eats has taken a big step in electrifying deliveries for its active couriers using the food delivery app in Sweden. Couriers for Uber Eats will soon be able to access a vehicle marketplace where they can buy, rent or lease electric vehicles at favourable prices from operators Keego Mobility, Movs, Rawbike and Cake.” Saad Nazir, a delivery worker, stated: “The e-bike costs less to operate so I earn more money compared to using my old moped while I make sure to leave a cleaner world behind for my children.” The company’s Green Future program has provided “access to resources valued at $800 million in an aim to help hundreds of thousands of drivers transition to battery EVs by 2025 in Canada, Europe, and the US.” Nevertheless, all I see for the most part are gas guzzling motorbikes. The disadvantages of food delivery systems in terms of food quality, health, restaurant viability and the safety of delivery people has been explained in an essay written by Bhavel Patel (May 29, 2025) and published here. An academic study published by Simone Pettigrew and colleagues in Australian and New Zealand Public Health, Vol. 47, No. 4, 2023, noted the negative health implications of expanded automated food delivery.
Plate 1: Foodora Robot Food Delivery Vehicle
Source: Taken by author March 30, 2025
Plate 2: The Potential Assault on Bike Lanes by Automated Food Vehicles
Source: Sebastian Gonzales, Christoffer Sveder, Ellen Oscarsson, and Simon Jönsson, “Challenges and potential business applications of Automated Delivery Vehicles – a brief overview,” Clean Motion AB, 2022, page 14. Accessible here.
Plate 3: Foodora Humanoid Food Delivery Vehicle
Source: Taken by author July 23, 2025
Local Impact vs. Global Context
How much are these vehicles contributing to Stockholm’s pollution? Little in one sense, but a lot in another sense. Each driver’s vehicle is a symbolic reminder of transgressions against the environment as well as being a public nuisance to those who interact with these vehicles on pedestrian pathways running parallel to bicycle lanes. These drivers often infringe on pedestrian spaces as they rush to do more work in less time. Their close proximity to pedestrians and greater visibility makes such vehicles more of a recognizable nuisance. Of course, the export of pollution to China via imports of Chinese goods is an even greater problem. A ChatGBT estimate found: “Sweden’s consumption-based emissions from China-produced imports are significant—currently in the order of 1.1 million tonnes CO₂‑eq per year, reflecting the carbon footprint offshore. These figures highlight that Sweden’s total climate impact extends well beyond its borders, with imported goods accounting for a large portion of its consumption-based emissions.”
Workers Sacrificed
Food delivery systems also often threaten riders. An academic study by Qingyu Wang and colleagues published in Journal of Sociology, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2024 found that “despite the high exposure to hazardous traffic, extreme weather conditions, and unsafe work hours and locations that these workers face daily, safety remains a low priority for both platforms and governments.” In fact, the Transport Workers Union published a finding in 2020 that “one in every four platform riders in Australia has experienced an accident while working…but despite this, the safety of platform riders remains a peripheral concern for customers, platforms and governments.” So the workers like the planet become disposable.
These individual safety concerns reflect broader systemic problems that researchers have begun to document comprehensively. Carolynne Lord, Oliver Bates, Adrian Friday, Fraser McLeod, Tom Cherrett, Antonio Martinez-Sykora, and Andy Oakey carried out a comprehensive review of the gig food delivery sector in an article entitled, “The sustainability of the gig economy food delivery system (Deliveroo, UberEATS and Just-Eat): Histories and futures of rebound, lock-in and path dependency,” International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, Vol. 17, No. 5, 2023. They examined whether gig economy food delivery platforms such as Deliveroo, UberEATS, and Just Eat represent genuinely sustainable business models. While these services are widely celebrated for their convenience and operational efficiency, the authors contended that a comprehensive evaluation reveals significant sustainability challenges across social, environmental, and economic factors. They drew on systems thinking and Scott Campbell’s (1996) conflict model of sustainability and showed how these three dimensions are interconnected yet frequently at odds with one another. The analysis revealed contradictions within the model: although bicycle delivery appears environmentally beneficial, competitive pressures drive couriers toward faster motorized transport, negating ecological advantages. The supposed flexibility of gig work masks underlying problems of income volatility, substandard working conditions, and insufficient labor protections for delivery workers.
The study examined phenomena including rebound effects, path dependency, and lock-in mechanisms, showing how the convenience-focused approach drives increased consumption, resulting in greater vehicle emissions, urban congestion, and packaging waste that counteracts potential environmental benefits. Additionally, business models dependent on venture capital funding and aggressive expansion create unstable operational conditions that sacrifice worker wellbeing and sustainable practices in favor of short-term growth objectives.
Conclusions: Create Clean, Cooperative Solutions through a Social Market
The short-term oriented business model that employed cheap, vulnerable workers delivering food on polluting vehicles infringing on pedestrians is become reorganized. This model is being revamped and will shift towards cleaner and even automated vehicles, but still promote unhealthy food alternatives, threaten workers’ jobs, or crowd out pedestrians. In sum, some of the alternatives are not all that desirable or even worse. The article by Lord and colleagues contains some interesting observations about the limits placed on clean bicycles. They argue that while bicycles are often seen as a “green” solution, platform algorithms tend to prioritize motorized vehicles (cars or scooters) for job allocation. So motorized couriers can deliver faster, farther, and carry more food, making them more “efficient” from the algorithm’s perspective. As a result, there are fewer delivery opportunities and lower earnings for bicycle couriers, discouraging their use even when they are more sustainable. We could still see competitive electric bicycles, but these may face speed and distance before charging constraints. Then we have electric scouters but their use often will be limited. The weekly rental costs can range between £79–94, which may require 12+ hours of work just to break even. In addition, many couriers can not afford to buy or rent e-scooters long-term—especially in low-paid, unstable gig roles.
So the ecocidal capitalist organization of food delivery has negative impacts on ecosystems and workers and is driven by speed, profits and income constraints. The alternatives would be to create a full looped alternative system of food delivery. This requires intervention not only in food production and consumption, but also work organization. Let us quickly walk through the areas of intervention.
This transformation requires coordinated intervention across multiple domains. First, when it comes to food production and consumption, food delivery provides food alternatives as part of urban life styles and is based on distance between the consumption point and food originating site. One alternative exists in cooperative housing in which food can be set aside if ordered as part of a larger collective effort to produce and consume food. In theory, a web-based Internet matching system might be arranged via a food consuming calendar. In this system, groups of persons order online and food trucks tied to cooperative catering firms deliver the food by hand or regular bicycle. The food trucks can be electric if not solar powered. The food trucks and cooperatives can be linked to ecological and sustainable farming and thus supply chains. Therefore, such food actually improves systemic alternatives rather than degrading the ecosystem. This system would not serve the most remote patrons, i.e. someone in an ex-urban, “far out” location. There are unlikely to be many such patrons, however. The super affluent who are part of that cohort often have their own food service staff. There are many urban consumers who live far from the sites of food diversity that they seek. Yet, this alternative system could produce such food diversity. The quality of the status quo food delivery systems is a mixed bag.
Beyond reimagining food systems, we must also restructure the organization of delivery work itself. Second, in terms of work organization, we have two sides of the coin. On the side of the delivery workers, they could be employed in unionized and aggregated delivery sites. Rather than having many drivers of distinct and separated motor bikes, there would be a shift to trucks that deliver to multiple, proximate consumers. Would this reduce the demand for labor? Perhaps, perhaps not. If the system is expanded somewhat, then it could employ more trucks and persons. In addition, each food truck could have its own staff of pedestrian delivery staff or staff using non-electric, non-polluting bicycles. On the side of consumers, part of the problem is the existent of very time-intensive, demanding jobs. This problem is hard to solve. There are competitive pressures in which time for food preparation competes with time needed to do regular jobs. Solutions to this problem might involve expanded unionization or redesigning jobs, but one still senses that some occupations will remain intensely time-demanding, e.g. the corporate lawyers defending polluting companies who work intense hours, billable hours in the hundreds of dollars. The expansion of cooperative, sustainable food supply chains could compete with the entities producing and demanding such labor. That’s a long-term proposition.
These changes, while challenging to implement, offer a path toward genuine sustainability. In conclusion, the alternatives to polluting gig food delivery should be the creation of cooperative hubs, tied to farmers, unionized work, and cleaner delivery systems. These should expand the scope of an ecological, labor-friendly and worker-friendly economy. If such food consumption expanded the cooperative economy, then it would be an advantage over the consumption that sustains marginalized and polluting jobs, robbing pedestrians and the ecosystem alike. In the following annex, I provide some data on pollution from food delivery motorbikes created by an AI program, i.e. these data require a follow up confirmation or rejection study.
A Chat GBT Report on Pollution from Food Delivery Motorbikes in Stockholm and Sweden, July 26, 2025
Pollution from Food Delivery Motorbikes in Stockholm and Sweden
Estimating the annual pollution from food delivery motorbikes in Stockholm and across Sweden is challenging due to a lack of detailed, delivery-specific data. However, a reasonable approximation can be made using national transport statistics and corporate sustainability data.
🛵 1. Mopeds & Motorcycles in Sweden’s Emissions
In 2024, domestic road transport in Sweden was responsible for approximately 8.76 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions, with mopeds and motorcycles contributing around 5%, or 440,000 tonnes (0.44 Mt CO₂-eq) (Svebio, 2024). This total includes emissions from personal, commercial, and delivery-related usage.
2. Food-Delivery Sector Emissions
The food delivery sector represents a small fraction of total moped use. For example, Foodora, a major delivery platform in Sweden, reported replacing over 110 fossil-fueled mopeds with electric ones in Stockholm and Gothenburg. This shift reduced emissions by approximately 2 tonnes of CO₂ per vehicle per year, amounting to a combined 220 tonnes CO₂ annually across both cities (Gocimo, 2023).
Assuming Stockholm accounts for half of this, emissions from Foodora’s fossil mopeds prior to electrification may have totaled about 110 tonnes CO₂ annually. Scaling to include other delivery companies, Stockholm’s total food-delivery-related moped emissions likely fall within the range of 500 to 1,000 tonnes CO₂ per year.
3. National Estimate
Assuming Stockholm represents roughly 20–30% of national food delivery activity, the total emissions from food-delivery mopeds across Sweden can be estimated at 5,000 to 20,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually. This remains a tiny fraction—less than 0.2%—of total national road transport emissions (Svebio, 2024).
4. Local Pollutants Beyond CO₂
While CO₂ contributes to climate change, air pollutants such as particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), and hydrocarbons (HC) also impact local air quality and public health. Older two-stroke fossil-fueled mopeds emit up to 30 times more hydrocarbons per kilometer than Euro 3-rated passenger cars (Wikipedia, 2024). Electrification significantly reduces these emissions.
📊 Summary Table
| Region | Estimated Annual CO₂ from Delivery Mopeds |
|---|---|
| Stockholm Metro Area | 500–1,000 tonnes CO₂ |
| Sweden (National) | 5,000–20,000 tonnes CO₂ |
| Transport Total | 8.76 million tonnes CO₂ |
| Delivery Share | < 0.2% of total transport emissions |
⚙️ Conclusion
Although food delivery mopeds contribute relatively little to Sweden’s total CO₂ emissions, they can still be a source of significant localized air pollution—especially if fossil-fueled. However, the ongoing transition to electric mopeds, particularly in urban areas like Stockholm, is already yielding measurable reductions in both greenhouse gases and harmful tailpipe emissions.
References
Gocimo. (2023). Foodora and Gocimo power up green deliveries with zero downtime. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.gocimo.com/newsroom/foodora-and-gocimo-power-up-green-deliveries-with-zero-downtime
Svebio. (2024). Record reduction of emissions from heavy traffic. Swedish Bioenergy Association. Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://www.svebio.se/en/press/pressmeddelanden/record-reduction-of-emissions-from-heavy-traffic/
Wikipedia. (2024). Scooter (motorcycle). Retrieved July 26, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_(motorcycle)
