Related Articles
Royal Mail is scaling back deliveries by flight in the UK and will instead transport more mail by road, in a move it said would help to both improve reliability for customers and cut carbon emissions in support of its plan to become a net zero company by 2040.
The delivery firm said it would be cutting the number flights it operates in the UK in half by discontinuing 18 domestic air freight journeys over the next year – a move it estimated would help to save around 30,000 tonnes of CO2.
The first wave of 11 flights have already been discontinued as of last month, with plans to stop three additional routes later this month, and a further four early next year, Royal Mail confirmed in an update.
After that, 18 regular Royal Mail delivery flights will remain, between East Midlands Airport and Belfast and Edinburgh, and Glasgow and the Scottish islands, it said.
Royal Mail said alternative delivery routes by road were less capacity-constrained and less likely to face disruption from poor weather. It added that the only domestic flights that would remain would be “essential” to fulfilling its legal obligation to provide a next-day delivery service.
The firm’s ability to divert more mail from air to road has been unlocked by changes Royal Mail has made to its operations, including later start times at delivery offices across the country, making it possible to accommodate longer journey times, it explained.
“The removal of half of our domestic flights is our biggest step yet in reducing our use of air to transport mail and a major step towards our net zero by 2040 target,” said Alistair Cochrane, chief operating officer at Royal Mail. “Not only will this reduce carbon emissions, transporting more mail by road will also help us provide a more reliable service for customers and increase our capacity to meet the increasing demand for next day parcel deliveries.”
Royal Mail has set a target to achieve net zero emissions by 2040, backed by pledges to reduce its Scope 3 value chain emissions by 25 per cent by the end of the decade, against a 2020-21 baseline. It estimates halving its use of domestic flights will contribute to a four per cent cut in its Scope 3 value chain emissions.
The firm’s fleet of road delivery vehicles also includes some which partly run on hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO), which it claims can reduce emissions by up to 90 per cent compared to using conventional diesel fuel.
You can now sign up to attend the fifth annual Net Zero Festival, which will be hosted by BusinessGreen on October 22-23 at the Business Design Centre in London.
Source link
