French postal operator La Poste will introduce carbon-neutral shipping of all mail, parcels andexpress shipments at no additional cost for customers to reduce its CO2 emissions with an
investment in the carbon offsetting of €12.5 million each year.La Poste said it is the first major postal operator to provide full carbon neutrality for allits deliveries with the goal to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% by 2015 compared to 2008. Thegroup-wide Total Zero initiative covers the company’s mail, parcel and express activities,including French parcels unit ColiPoste and express subsidiary GeoPost, with all its businessunits.
The group plans to invest €12.5 million for the carbon offsetting each year. In 2012, La Postewill invest €8-8.5 million, La Poste spokesman David Drujon told CEP-Research.
He explained that the smaller amount this year is due to the carbon-neutral initiative startingin March for the mail and parcel deliveries (provided through ColiPoste) and in July for expressdeliveries (provided through GeoPost). Express deliveries within France are provided throughGeoPost units Chronopost and Exapaq and through DPD’s country subsidiaries on the internationallevel including Germany, UK, Netherlands and Belux.
La Poste stressed that all its service offerings are covered by the carbon neutrality, includingpaper mail, hybrid mail, digital mail as well as parcel and express services. Thereby, all CO2emissions related to these activities, including those of subcontractors, are taken intoaccount.
La Poste’s carbon-neutrality programme will support various environmental projects at a domesticlevel (metropolitan France and the DOM regions) but also in developing countries with the aim toreduce greenhouse gas emissions. It will involve postal workers who will be asked in March 2012 tochoose from the variety of “climate solidarity” projects.
The company already decided in 2007 to boost its environmental policy of reducing CO2 emissionswith diverse measures including cleaner transport, eco-design of its services, new services like “green letters”, responsible building management, customer awareness, promoting environmentallyfriendly practices among postal workers and training in eco-driving.
As part of La Poste’s group-wide initiative, GeoPost subsidiary DPD also unveiled Total Zerothis week as the industry’s first-ever comprehensive CO2-neutral shipping commitment at no extracost to customers. The carbon neutral commitment will be achieved through a triple mechanism:measuring emitted carbon, reducing the carbon produced by DPD and subsequently carbon offsetting,DPD explained.
