Royal Mail - Guide to Distribution Services

It is important that you use organisations that manage the environmental impacts of distributing DM communications.

At a minimum the delivery of a campaigns DM communications should be:

  • Managed by organisations that have a documented commitment to environmental management and establish a baseline for environmental performance.
  • Identify and have controls in place to ensure compliance with environmental legislation and other environmental requirements (such as standards, codes of practice and/or guidelines.
  • Develop environmental objectives, targets and programmes.

Royal Mail Sustainable Mail™

Sustainable Mail™ is a group of products we will offer with the objective of reducing the environmental impact of mail and ensuring its sustainability in the future. The specification for Sustainable Mail™ gives our business customers guidance on how to prepare their mail to have least environmental impact. By following our Sustainable Mail™ specification businesses can make their consumers mailing more sustainable.

Our Sustainable Mail™ specification has been aligned to PAS 2020 and gives our customers guidance on how to prepare mail to have least environmental impact.

There are two levels in our specification: entry level and intermediate level. Both will evolve over time to reflect changing capabilities of local authorities to recycle material, as well as technological developments in the industry. Changes to the product specification will be linked to changes to the PAS 2020 specification, which is to be reviewed at least every two years.

Royal Mail Carbon Management Programme

We recognise that in common with other businesses of our size, we have an impact on the environment. We also realise that with the size, reach and nature of our business, we are in a position to continually seek ways to reduce our impact on the environment. That’s why we are committed to reducing our own carbon footprint and we want to help our customers do the same.

We’re leading the mail industry in addressing the challenges of climate change. Our award-winning Group-wide carbon management programme comprised of nine separate projects has eliminated over 140,000 tonnes of C02 emissions in last five years and we aim to be completely carbon neutral by 2015.

We have developed a sustainability strategy focused on reducing our impact on the environment. As part of our strategy, challenging and ambitious targets have been agreed by 2010. These are:

  • A reduction in Group-wide fleet fossil fuel usage by 14%
  • A reduction in energy consumption for building energy use by 10%
  • An increase in the usage of renewable energy to 50% of total building energy use
  • A reduction in the quantity of solid waste sent to landfill by 25%
  • A reduction in water use by 5% from current levels

Our vehicles

To date, we’ve trialled and evaluated a range of alternative fuel vehicles – including Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), hybrid and electric – to determine how best to reduce CO2 emissions. We are also training our drivers to be more safety and environmentally conscious. To help improve fuel consumption and we’re proactively encouraging our 180,000 employees to adopt a more environmentally friendly approach to driving both at work and in their personal lives.

Telemetry technology has been installed in some 8,000 vans and trucks that will potentially reduce 7,000 tonnes of carbon output and save 2.5 million litres of diesel in 2009.

We’ve invested in a fleet of more than 200 double-deck trailers, each of which can transport 50 per cent more mail than conventional trucks. This extra capacity means that Royal Mail cuts down on road miles, saving the equivalent in miles of twice the earth’s circumference. Our 2006 CSR report shows that between 2003 and 2006 the transport element of our mail operation’s CO2 emissions reduced by 28 per cent.

Waste

We have an obligation to dispose of our waste in a responsible manner. Not only do we comply with evolving legislation relating to waste, we’re improving our waste handling over and above the legal requirements. We’re working with our waste contractor to develop more effective waste management and minimisation programmes. We’re also expanding our recycling capability and have invited specialists to give us their input on waste segregation and recycling and we’re developing recycling ‘centres of excellence’.

Water

We’ve appointed a team of specialists to investigate water consumption across all our properties. They will investigate water wastage or high volumes of use and help us move towards reducing our water consumption.

Making our buildings more energy efficient

In association with the Carbon Trust, we are working on reducing the consumption, cost and resultant CO2 impacts from our building utility usage through a combination of technological and behavioural initiatives in our 3,000 buildings. Energy efficiency toolkits have been circulated to all of our managers, and all of our mainland UK sites use 100% renewable energy (supplied by EDF Green Energy).

Our CSR Awards

  • Finalist - Corporate Social Responsibility category - World Mail Awards 2007
  • Winner - Corporate Social Responsibility category - World Mail Awards 2006
  • Winner - Traffic & Transport Management category - City of London’s Liveable City Awards 2006
  • Winner - European Best CSR Programme of the Year. Strategic Risk European Risk Management Awards 2006
  • Highly Commended - European Best CSR Programme of the Year. Strategic Risk European Risk Management Awards 2005

Our Achievements

The Carbon Trust Standard certifies that an organisation has genuinely reduced its carbon footprint and is committed to making further reductions year on year. We have achieved this standard which shows that we are committed to measuring, managing and reducing our carbon footprint.

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