PostNL has opened a new parcels eco-depot in Breda, southern Netherlands, creating 250 new jobs,under its ongoing €240 million investment in new depots to modernise and increase sorting
capacity.The Breda depot is the sixth new parcels facility to be opened to cope with a sharp increase involumes in recent years boosted by the strong growth in e-commerce. The company is investing €240million in 18 newly-built depots to modernise and expand the network capacity of its parcelsbusiness, which it sees as one of its key growth drivers.
The new facilities, which will replace four regional and 37 local centres, should all be inoperation by 2015, providing capacity to process 140 million parcels a year. In 2011, PostNLParcels handled 106 million parcels and made an operating profit of €88 million on revenues of €608million.
At the new Breda depot, around 25 of the 250 new jobs, are destined for workers distant to thelabour market in close cooperation with the regional WVS Group, the company explained.
Various environmentally building techniques were applied to the new depot. “Re-use is a commontheme in the construction of the PostNL Parcels depots. The land in Breda is a redevelopment of aformer water treatment plant. Moreover, the building is designed to make future re-use easier. Thisis achieved by adapting the height of the building and by making certain constructions easy todisassemble,” the company stated.
In addition, the buildings are equipped with energy-efficient applications including the mostenergy efficient sorting machines, ventilation which recovers heat, light-coloured roofing, optimaluse of daylight and extra insulation of the offices.
PostNL highlighted the “green energy” of its new depots. “The new buildings of PostNL Parcelsare over 30% more efficient and have an A+ energy label,” it added.
