Austrian Post again delivered all its postal shipments across Austria in a climate-neutral way in 2014 for a fourth year in a row, considerably reducing its CO2 emissions from around 100,000 tons to around 70,000 tons annually over the last five years.
This achievement has been made possible through a variety of measures such as expanding its e-fleet, ongoing optimisation of delivery routes, commissioning of two photovoltaic systems and switching to electricity from renewable energy, Austrian Post CEO Georg Pölzl explained. “We ship around 5.7 billion items to every region of Austria, which requires enormous use of resources.”
The postal operator launched the initiative ‘Delivered in CO2-neutral way’ in 2011, to gradually reduce its ecological footprint with every letter or parcel sent by customers. It essentially focuses on emission reductions, efficient use of resources, and increasing use of alternative energy. Emissions that cannot be avoided are offset by voluntary support of national and international climate protection projects.
As part of the initiative, the company’s own energy and fuel consumption is constantly reduced and invested in clean energy. “Since 2011, we have been compensating all the emissions that we can’t avoid for the moment. In total, this amounts to around 295,000 tons of CO2,” Pölzl said.
The country’s Technical Inspection Agency TÜV Austria confirmed that the CO2 emissions had been compensated as required last year.
Meanwhile, Austrian Post has already invested €6 million in e-mobility, supported by the environmental programme of the Austrian Ministry of Environment and the governmental Climate and Energy Fund. The postal operator now counts 900 e-vehicles, with the number due to increase to 1,300 in 2016. With the photovoltaic systems in Vienna-Inzersdorf and in Allhaming, the company generates around 1.4 million of kilowatt-hours in ‘green’ electricity.
