IPC extends carbon reduction programme to Latin America with Brazil’s Correios

Brazil’s Correios has joined the global postal carbon reduction programme as the first LatinAmerican postal operator marking its expansion further across the globe into Latin America, the

Herbert-Michael Zapf, President & CEO of IPC, stressed the importance of Correios’participation in IPC’s Environmental Measurement and Monitoring System (EMMS) for expanding andconsolidating the industry’s collaborative approach to reducing its carbon footprint: “Correios hasalready made considerable efforts in sustainability at home: it is now demonstrating its globalleadership by helping lead in postal sector sustainability internationally. As the incumbent postaloperator in Latin America’s largest economy, Correios’ participation is absolutely crucial inhelping extend the global postal industry’s carbon reduction efforts into one of the world’sfastest-growing regions.”

The official signing ceremony took place at Rio+20, the United Nations sustainable developmentconference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last week, with Correios President Wagner Pinheiro deOliveira and Zapf signing the agreement.

Pinheiro de Oliveira commented: “Operating in a vast country such as ours, it is hugelyimportant for us to work to reduce our carbon emissions. We have already made great strides to thisend, and being part of IPC’s EMMS programme will help us strengthen those efforts. By sharing bestpractices with postal operators around the world we can both learn from our colleagues and shareour own learnings with them, in our common objective to make a significant positive impact on thesectors carbon footprint.”

The Brazilian postal operator is the second BRICS nation to join the carbon reduction programme,following South Africa Post Office’s joining the programme in July 2011. “By participating in theEMMS, Correios has reaffirmed its commitment to sustainable business development and commits itssolidarity in contributing to the collective attainment of the sector’s carbon emissions reductiontarget,” IPC said in a statement.

IPC’s EMMS programme is the first sector-wide carbon reduction initiative for a servicesindustry and was launched in 2009 with a target of reducing the CO2 emissions of the postal sectorby 20% by 2020, based on 2008 baseline figures. Launched as a pilot in 2008 with 16 posts, EMMS wasexpanded in 2009 to 20 posts reporting on carbon emissions reduction efforts, to 22 in 2010 withthe signing of Poste Italiane and Österreichische Post, and to 23 in 2011 with the addition ofSouth African Post Office.

In the 2011 Postal Sector Sustainability Report, IPC announced that participating posts hadcollectively cut their carbon emissions by 926,000 tonnes, achieving with a reduction of over 11%more than half of the 20-2020 target.

The International Post Corporation comprises 24 member postal operators in Asia Pacific, Europeand North America.