Delivery time

On the long journey towards sustainable development, Royal Mail reckons it’s just about half way, as Charles Tucker reports.

We’re a commercial business, so of course we’re committed to increasing our profitability and brand value - but Royal Mail’s commercial needs aim to strike a balance with environmental and social considerations.

In our five-stage environmental vision, agreed two years ago at board level, we are trying to move beyond just ensuring compliance. Ultimately, we want to embed environmental behaviours in our business culture, so that we become a restorative business that has secured its licence to operate in a sustainable society.

Royal Mail is not just posties on bikes: our environmental footprint [see right] is huge, with transport our biggest impact.

The monitoring and targeting systems we introduced to reduce our energy and water use will soon be extended to cover all our property portfolio of over 2,500 sites. Our headline indicator, which we call our Real Unit Distribution Cost, is expressed in terms of the amount of CO2 we produce for every 1,000 items delivered. It currently stands at 27.3 kg - and we aim to reduce this by 5% on a rolling three-year average.

To reduce our fleet’s transport emissions such as CO2 and particulates, we research, with partners where appropriate, the use of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and new engine technology. We are keen both to reduce reliance on non-renewable fuels, and to exploit increasingly viable alternatives - we’ve already had some experience with using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), compressed natural gas (CNG), electricity, ultra-low sulphur diesel (ULSD) and biodiesel. A significant step in this process was the recent acquisition of 200 additional LPG vehicles. These are located in London and other towns with particular air quality problems caused by traffic emissions.

A good example of our sustainable transport use is our Postbuses. As well as carrying mail in rural areas, the Postbuses carry 5,000 passengers per year and operate 50,000 miles - enabling remote communities to stay in touch.

Among the initiatives designed to help improve our environmental performance are:

• green travel plans for employees;
• electronic meetings and video-conferences to reduce business travel;
• a transport review programme, restructuring the way we use our vehicles, aircraft and trains, to reduce our transport-generated CO2 by 35%;
• green supply chain actions, such as a sustainable procurement charter and a sustainable development award for our suppliers;
• using renewable energy and combined heat and power (CHP) units at our operating sites;
• improving biodiversity by sponsoring 10 woodland groves in the UK.

We are also committed to recycling activities. 4,000 bikes are sent to Africa each year. IT equipment is reused or recycled - none goes to landfill. Old uniforms are reused in the third world or as padding for car seats. Batteries and vehicle workshop wastes are recycled. And we have a national scheme for recycling office wastes such as paper and toners.

By linking communities, enhancing economies, acting with social responsibility and minimising our impact on the environment, we can help create a world in which our company can flourish now - and for generations to come.

Charles Tucker is head of environment at Royal Mail

Royal Mail’s eco-parcel unwrapped

• CO2 emissions of 934,000 tonnes a year enough to fill a million hot air balloons

• Fuel use of 167 million litres by road vehicles that cover 1,200 million km per year equal to 1,500 round trips to the moon

• Energy use of 1,260 gigawatts which would keep a city like Birmingham (382,000 households) in electricity for a year

• Water use of 3.5 million cubic metres - enough to float 50 ocean liners

7 July 2004

Charles Tucker