Carousell says its users avoided 153,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in 2023

Carousell Group linked this to users choosing pre-owned over new items.

Secondhand shopping is doing more than saving money—it’s cutting carbon emissions in a big way.

According to the latest Circular Economy Impact Report by Carousell Group, users across its platforms potentially avoided 153,141 tonnes of carbon emissions in 2023 by choosing pre-owned over new items. That’s roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon absorbed by 9 million trees in a year.

The report—developed in collaboration with European climate tech company Vaayu—uses Life Cycle Assessment methodology to quantify the environmental benefits of secondhand transactions across four Carousell Group platforms: Carousell, Laku6, Mudah.my, and REFASH.

Each secondhand item bought on the Group’s platforms avoided an average of 14 kilograms of carbon emissions, equivalent to the emissions from producing 22 plastic bottles. The highest impact categories were furniture, tech, home appliances, mobile phones, and sports equipment.

According to the report, three out of five secondhand purchases on Carousell Group likely replaced the purchase of a new item, reducing demand for newly manufactured goods.

Carousell has integrated sustainability into the shopping experience with carbon savings estimates shown at the product listing level, encouraging users to consider environmental impact whilst browsing.

Meanwhile, platforms like Laku6 and Maujual in Indonesia have run tree-planting campaigns and launched new retail experiences focused on refurbished electronics and sustainability education.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia