European postal operators are linking up to address climate change and significantly reduce theircarbon footprint, the PostEurop association announced today.
Nine operators – Deutsche Post World Net, TNT, La Poste Group, Post Danmark, Swiss Post,Belgian Post, Itella, Norway Post and Maltapost – have agreed to an ambitious average 10% reductionof their greenhouse gas emissions over the next five years.
More PostEurop members are expected to commit to the PostEurop Greenhouse Gas Reductionprogramme before year-end. The programme will cover transport, buildings and machinery,eco-efficiency products, and procurement and use of renewable energy and low carbon fuels.
Commenting the initiative, Mr Jean-Paul Bailly, La Poste Group President, said: “Managinggreenhouse gas emissions has become a strategic challenge for all postal operators and a commonpositioning on this will certainly contribute to moving faster and in a more efficient way.”
The postal sector in Europe, through the very nature of its activities, has an impact on theenvironment, mostly in the form of greenhouse gas emissions which represent 70% of its totalenvironmental impact. Half of these CO2 emissions result from the use of road transport, withaviation and building energy usage also contributing significantly, PostEurop pointed out. Intotal, European Post generate CO2 emissions of between 8 and 11 million tons yearly.
Elaborated by PostEurop’s Environment Working Group under the authority of the SocialResponsibility Committee, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Programme is fully in line with the KyotoProtocol and the European Climate Change Programme targets. Its aim is to develop the appropriatetools to measure and assess the reduction efforts of participating postal operators and to createsynergies by exchanging best practices in that field.
