Sustainability in Action

Our commitment to sustainability underpins everything we do as a business. Climate change and its relationship to man-made carbon emissions are significant global issues and we recognise the importance of understanding and improving the environmental impact of mail and parcels. It’s a role we take seriously, and whilst some changes will require additional time or technological advances that are not within our control, the measures we have already implemented are beginning to make a significant difference.

In fact, Carbon Neutral Britain – the UK’s Carbon Offsetting Initiative – recently certified The Delivery Group as Carbon Neutral against the scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions boundaries. Put simply, scope 1 and 2 are emissions owned or controlled by a company e.g. , and scope 3 emissions are a consequence of the activities of the company but occur from sources not owned or controlled by it (e.g. using and disposing of products from suppliers).

This reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a major step towards our objective of achieving Carbon Net Zero for direct operational activity by 2045.

The sustainability initiatives we have in place and planned for the future are extensive. These are encapsulated under our three Pillars – Partnership, Performance and People:

Partnership

• Provide carbon reporting, where required, on individual jobs for managed service clients.
• Reduce carbon emissions via improved route optimisation techniques.
• Provide a returns management process to help cleanse client databases and hence reduce waste
• Working with customers to ensure optimum collection times and vehicle types are used to maximise vehicle optimisation and reducing miles travelled

Performance

• Investment in new energy-efficient hubs.
• LED energy-saving lighting with motion sensors deployed at all our key sites.
• Deploy double-decker trailers to increase capacity and reduce the number of routes operated each day.
• Improved consumable management processes deployed to reduce dedicated consumable deliveries.
• Electric vehicles employed in Central London with ambition to convert all vehicles to electric within 10 years.

People

• Cycle to work scheme to help reduce CO2 emissions.
• Hybrid home working policy introduced for all eligible staff, reducing CO2 travel to work emissions by approximately 30,800kg.
• Accredited to ISO14001, which promotes good practice for environmental processes.
• Environmental training and awareness undertaken by all staff.
• Free to use staff charging points for electric vehicles

Clearly, this is a rolling programme of change and we continually monitor or progress against our aims, nor is it something that we achieve in isolation. We aim to promote good governance with both clients and suppliers to drive towards targets that benefit all. Continuous improvement comes from all parties monitoring performance, highlighting best-practice and embracing change.

Some practices that we employ will have an immediately obvious environmental benefit. An example here is the recycling of secured waste – as a business we recycled 100% of secured waste, saving over 1.7T of CO2 in a 12-month period. Other practices will be less immediately obvious but will contribute significantly to our goals in the long term. The cleansing of data records, for example, ensures mail arrives at the right address and reduces unwanted mail and waste. We cleanse over 80m records per annum to drive greater efficiencies.
Ultimately, our objective is clear. We aim to reduce the impact on the environment from our operational activities. We will meet our commitment to sustainability through the way in which we provide services to our clients. Our Directors, Managers and Staff will collectively take responsibility for this policy and all parties are committed to its success.

We look forward to reporting future achievements as we steer towards our 2045 Carbon Net Zero goal.