Green Postal Day launched | Post & Parcel

Today marks the first Green Postal Day – launched to highlight the benefits the postal industry has reaped by working together as a sector over the last 10 years to reduce CO2 emissions.

CEOs from 12 global postal operators will call on other industry sectors to follow their example and adopt a collective approach to tackle climate change.

Since 2008, postal operators participating in the Postal Sector Sustainability programme have reduced their collective carbon emissions by almost 30%, and their collective electricity consumption by 24%.

Posts have doubled the share of alternative-fuel vehicles in their fleet from 73,000 vehicles in 2012 to 150,000 in 2017; equivalent to 23% of the total vehicle fleet.

The Postal Sector Sustainability programme is a sector wide initiative to tackle the impact of global climate change via a collective approach to reduce carbon emissions. Currently 19 posts participate in the programme: An Post (Ireland), Australia Post (Australia), Austrian Post (Austria), bpost (Belgium), Correos (Spain), CTT Portugal Post (Portugal), Deutsche Post DHL Group (Germany), Le Groupe La Poste (France), New Zealand Post Group (New Zealand), POST Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Poste Italiane (Italy), Posten Norge (Norway), Posti  (Finland),  PostNL (The Netherlands), PostNord (Denmark & Sweden), Royal Mail Group Plc (United Kingdom), South African Post Office (South Africa), Swiss Post (Switzerland), United States Postal Service (United States).

To meet future challenges, postal operators have now aligned their sustainability programme with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focusing on health and safety, learning and development, air quality, climate change, resource efficiency, circular economy and sustainable procurement.

Patricia Espinosa, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary: “The postal sector has shown great leadership by adopting a common approach to reduce their carbon footprint. Not only have the posts achieved their targets well ahead of schedule, but now they are taking it a step further by aligning their objectives to UN Sustainable Development Goals. We are convinced that this is the right way to go and we urge other sectors to follow this example”.

Frank Appel, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL Group says, “What’s important to me is to point out not only what we at Deutsche Post DHL Group have achieved, but also to highlight the joint efforts of the postal sector as a whole in the area of climate protection. We share our innovations and ideas for reducing carbon emissions with each other and encourage each other to carry out planned initiatives to fruition. Our goal is to cooperate as a sector in making a crucial contribution to slowing down the pace of global warming and minimising the long-term effects of climate change.”

Koen Van Gerven, CEO bpost: “Working collectively as a sector has challenged and helped us to move further and to adopt even more ambitious targets at a national level. As one of Belgium’s leading companies, bpost wishes to play a pioneer role in environmental protection and has set itself the goal of reducing CO₂ emissions from its activities by at least 20% by 2030. To succeed, bpost will replace 50% of its diesel fleet with electric alternatives by then.”