All transport companies produce CO2 and accordingly have a negative impact on the environment. In fact, estimates indicate that transport is responsible for 18% of global emissions. In 2007, TNT itself was responsible for producing 1,019 ktonnes of CO2, a total that rises to about 2,500 ktonnes if you include our subcontractors (excluding major acquisitions).
As things stand, these are facts we have to accept. With the current level of technology and reach of our business, there are no feasible alternatives in the short term to eliminate emissions entirely from our operations. Yet we believe that as we are part of the problem, we should also be part of the solution. If transport companies are to retain their license to operate, they must improve their environmental performance. So what can we do?
Our response is a new programme, initiated last year entitled Planet Me. Its vision: to become a zero-emissions transport company.
The challenges of climate change are enormous. We see the evidence all around us: diminishing polar ice caps and rising sea levels, greater numbers of droughts that cause famines and excessive rainfall leading to floods in other areas of the world. Planet Me aims to ensure we manage our contribution to this effect effectively.
We have divided the project into three separate components. Code Orange looks at the actions we as an organisation can take: our operational commitment. Choose Orange will make our employees more aware of how they can help. Finally, Count Carbon looks at the installment of company-internal processes to manage, measure and report our CO2 emissions.
Code Orange
Code Orange is a mandatory programme that touches every aspect of our business. It focuses on eight key initiatives, led by multidisciplinary teams from our reporting entities.
Aviation
Our airplanes generate more than half our CO2 emissions and are therefore an important area of focus. Here we will develop and implement a sustainable aviation strategy with measures that continuously manage our emissions. Ultimately, however, we can only achieve significant improvements if and when new and viable groundbreaking aircraft technologies become available to us.
Buildings
In 2007, about 17 percent of our emissions came from the energy we used in our buildings, including electricity and heating. Our ambition is to make our future buildings CO2-neutral or even CO2-positive (where the net CO2 ecquivalent emissions from activities are positive). While contributing positively to our CO2 footprint, it will also offer cost savings and a better working environment for our employees.
In 2007 we launched our Planet Me buildings concept in the Netherlands. The concept consists of a new CO2-positive Group Head Office by 2010 and will contain a total of 70,000 square meters of CO2-neutral or -positive offices at increasingly accessible locations closer to our employees’ homes. This flexible office concept will not only impact our own footprint and the commuting footprint of our employees. It will also allow us to make significant savings on office expenses. TNT is looking into the possibilities of developing CO2-neutral depots. As of 2008 all our operations in the Netherlands will be using 100% CO2-free electricity produced by hydropower.
Business travel
We aim to cut down on CO2 emissions resulting from our business travel by air and by using videoconferencing limit it to critical travel only. The objective is to reduce air travel by 20% in 2008. At the end of 2007, we had state-of-the-art video conferencing equipment in over 54 locations worldwide.
Company cars
We will address the emissions from our fleet by implementing a green company car fleet, mandating the use of fuel-efficient cars. We have introduced an additional cash incentive for employees who choose a highly fuel-efficient car, i.e. cars that produce less than 120g/CO2 per kilometre.
Green investment
We will include CO2 among the principal criteria in our budget and investment processes. We will introduce further focus on environmental and CO2 consequences of our decisions at all company levels.
Operational vehicles
Our trucks and vans generate some 23 percent of our total emissions. From now on, we will buy only vehicles that meet the highest environmental standards. As mentioned in last year’s report, we incorporated electric trucks in our operational fleet in the UK and the Netherlands. We are also running a number of projects for the use of alternate fuels. As we learn about these developments and their implementation, we will design a clean fleet strategy for the future.
Procurement
We are implementing new, sustainable policies and procedures that will apply to the purchase of all goods and services and the manner in which we select our suppliers and subcontractors.
Partnering with our customers
We will provide customers with accurate information on the CO2 emissions generated by our customers’ shipments. We will also offer them the opportunity of offsetting the CO2 emissions of their shipments or mailings. If they are prepared to pay for compensation, we will invest the same amount of money to create a carbon-positive consignment. The funds collected will be invested in dedicated climate change programmes. Our first efforts in this regard, offering business partners the chance to send CO2-neutral consignments, is being introduced in 2008.
Choose Orange
As the estimated CO2 footprint of the households of more than 160,000 TNT employees is larger than the footprint of our own and subcontractor operations combined, we have started to look for ways to help our colleagues reduce their footprint at home and often save costs at the same time. As participation in these initiatives is voluntary, we call these actions “Choose Orange”.
We are seeing many inspiring initiatives from our colleagues around the world. These initiatives are often implemented by our colleagues themselves and are based on their own ideas .
TNT Portugal has instigated a voluntary programme together with Quercus (www.quercus.pt) to visit employees at home to analyse their electricity and fuel consumption, advise on reduction potential and monitor the effectiveness over time.
TNT Bulgaria has launched “ride a bike – be on time” where employees who leave their car at home and ride their bikes to the office receive a free orange bicycle.
The TNT personnel association in the Netherlands has combined the purchasing power of all 80,000 TNT employees and pensioners to negotiate a significant discount on green energy at home. If we can get all 80,000 employees and pensioners to participate, it will reduce our global TNT family footprint significantly.
The first Drive Me challenge was organised in which country managers and their best pick-up and delivery drivers battled in TNT delivery vans powered by biofuel for the title “fastest and most fuel-efficient team”.
Enthusiastic TNT colleagues created their own Planet Me community website on the Internet. This initiative has been picked up by the Planet Me team to launch a community application on www.tntplanetme.com enabling colleagues, their families and other interested individuals to share their initiatives and inspire others.
We believe that many small changes can make a big impact.
Count Carbon
Where the first two projects within Planet Me focus on measures we can take to limit our impact, Count Carbon is about managing, monitoring and reporting on CO2. Basically it is about getting the facts and figures right.
Count Carbon was initiated to improve the understanding of emissions sources and the potential of measures. Main objectives were to determine the magnitude of subcontractor emissions and to project emissions in the future to generate a complete view of our carbon footprint and the related challenges. This understanding is key to identifying the areas where we can make the most significant changes.
To determine the scope of subcontractor emissions, we developed a model that calculates CO2 emissions generated by subcontracted services throughout TNT. Subcontractor emissions were estimated at 1,444 ktonnes of CO2 in 2007. When these emissions are included in the TNT footprint, TNT’s total emissions amounted to about 2,500 ktonnes in 2007 (excluding major acquisitions).
We also identified our potential for reduction. For 2008 the biggest win lies in increasing fuel- and energy-efficiency and expanding green electricity sourcing. For 2009 and beyond our subcontractors offer the biggest reduction potential and at the same time our largest challenge.
With Count Carbon we will focus on further improving our CO2 management, monitoring and reporting practices. This will allow us to track and manage emission systematically throughout TNT and improve our CO2 performance. Improving external CO2 reporting and providing customers with accurate CO2 information is also part of Count Carbon.
The business case for cutting out carbon
In addition to the obvious reasons for reducing our carbon emissions, we are also convinced that taking care of the environment is crucial for business.
Surveys tell us that our customers share our environmental concerns. In fact, they evaluate us and our competitors increasingly on what we do about climate change.
Our large customers demand that we improve the transparency of our CO2 footprint (per customer, per parcel, per route) and again, that we green our performance. Acting pro-actively to these changing demands creates opportunities for us.
From an operational perspective, we are also seeing that other stakeholders are responding to global warming, starting with European and local authorities. We anticipate legislation that will enforce greener transportation. The EU, for example, is calling for a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. We also see restrictions being created increasingly to stimulate clean inner city distribution, for instance in London, in Rotterdam and in other cities. We believe that to retain its license to operate, the transportation industry needs to improve its environmental performance.