Environmental Aspects of Postal Delivery (in support of the Green Deal)

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹
Open, unattended #infrastructure is critical to digitalizing #retail, new fulfilment #technologies, smart collection, highly efficient transport, sortation which incorporates #consumerpreferences, and last mile delivery. As advance #electronicdata for every single #postal item containing goods and merchandise is now mandatory, this encourages the rise of new and innovative data-driven #solutions. 

#Stakeholder awareness, paired with #marketing, branding activities and customer retention strategies, will help to prevent “greenwashing” in this field, instead leading to real item-related accountability for any end-to-end environmental #delivery footprint. Measuring the parcel delivery environmental footprint, from the product manufacture through to the end-of-life treatment of retail goods, is the key to combating #climatechange across the entire postal sector.

This only becomes possible by choosing the most effective mitigation strategies, fully disclosing the #environmentalimpacts of parcel logistics and delivery services, and applying solid monitoring methodologies, data sets, and standard accounting and reporting approaches.

𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗛𝗚 𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 & 𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗨 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆
Postal sector-specific #standards are included the current workplan of the European Committee for Standardization (#CEN). These standards aim to describe a consistent and harmonized methodology for environmental footprinting across the supply chain of parcel logistics and delivery services. 

While a variety of standards and methodologies for emissions accounting are already publicly available, these neither consider the entire #supplychain, nor focus on the #postal sector-specific accounting of environmental impacts.

Developing postal sector-specific standards will serve to establish accountability for emissions in the end-to-end logistics service supply chain. This includes all material #transportation and operational activities and allocates all emissions involved in the #delivery of each individual #parcel. This is achieved by describing standard sets of #data points for measurement, and a standard calculation and parcel-specific allocation methodology. 

#Environmentalstandards for the postal sector should be applicable across all #parcellogistics service providers, and accessible to a diverse user group. The #requirements and #guidance should be aligned with existing standards and based on sound scientific methods.