Executive Summary

Deutsche Post DHL was the first logistics company to set a quantified carbon efficiency goal. Step by step, they are working to reach this ambitious goal and to improve their efficiency, thereby reducing costs, adding value and creating new market opportunities. DHL are committed to minimizing the impact of their business on the environment. Their core businesses, mail and logistics, result in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), making climate protection the primary focus of their efforts.

GoGreen Strategy

DHL's environmental protection program, GoGreen, sets the stage for their environmental management system, covering the local management of aspects such as water, waste, noise, the use of natural resources and local air pollution. Their environmental protection program is crucial to their strategic goals to make a positive contribution to the world and offer their customers innovative, sustainable solutions. The primary objectives laid down in their Environmental Policy are:

• Achieve transparency of their environmental impact, with a focus on their carbon footprint including subcontracted transportation.
• Improve operational efficiency and minimize their environmental impact.
• Generate value in offering green solutions to their customers and helping them to achieve their environmental goals.
• Demonstrate leadership in fostering green technologies, helping to shape political regulations and engaging with their key stakeholders.
• Mobilize employees in strengthening their environmental knowledge and helping them to engage in environmental protection.

Staff Engagement

Create awareness: Environmental and climate protection is already well-known across DHL Group. DHL need to create further awareness about the GoGreen program and make their employees understand why their contribution is crucial.

Call to action: DHL's employees know best how to save resources and improve efficiency in their everyday working lives. DHL leverage this knowledge and involve them in contributing to environmental and climate protection through GoGreen.

Driver Training: To raise the level of environmental awareness and improve the driving techniques of their employees, DHL constantly run eco-driver training and use awareness campaigns such as the “Global Road Safety” initiative. This encourages employees to practice fuel-efficient driving. Deutsche Post and DHL asked their employees in Germany to take a proactive role and submit their ideas for eco-friendly driving techniques. Through the “fuel saving idea 2009” competition, more than 7,000 employees’ ideas were generated.

Progress

• To improve their environmental performance further, DHL updated their Group-wide Environmental Policy in 2010. It sets the foundation for DHL's GoGreen program and helps ensure their environmental compliance.
• Carbon Accounting and Controlling has been established as a dedicated department within Deutsche Post DHL’s Corporate Controlling, emphasizing the business relevance of GoGreen. In the 2010 Global 500 Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index DHL were ranked 2nd with 97 out of 100 possible points amongst the 500 largest companies in the world.
• Over 14,000 employees from 80 countries joined activities for World Environment Day and around 5,000 employees participated in GoGreen Dialog Map workshops to save resources in their workplace.
• DHL delivered more than 1.7 billion carbon-neutral GOGREEN shipments. And to create their own carbon credits in the future, DHL launched their first climate protection project in Lesotho with efficient firewood stoves, saving up to 80% carbon emissions compared to conventional stoves.

DHL interview with Kevin Bennett

Kevin Bennett is the Director of the Sustainable Supply Chain Centre – Asia Pacific (SSCCAP) hosted by the National University of Singapore. Kevin is focused on turning sustainability challenges faced by companies into growth opportunities, and has worked in several industry sectors for different companies.

What does your job involve?

Although I work for DHL Supply Chain I am currently seconded to the Sustainable Supply Chain Centre – Asia Pacific (www.ssccap.com) which Deutsche Post DHL (DP DHL) started with the National University of Singapore. The centre has been set up as an industry wide initiative to help drive greater sustainability in supply chains in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

One of the areas the Centre is focused on is providing the supply chain industry in the APAC region with viable and practical sustainable business solutions. One of the first tools we have launched is the SSCCAP Energy Certificate which measures the energy efficiency of a logistics facility and can be used to minimise the resource and effort required to reduce energy costs and the carbon footprint of a warehouse. The Energy Certificate enables the meaningful and relatively easy comparison of different facilities to see which are the most efficient and which facilities offer the greatest opportunity for energy and cost savings.

Which units of measurement does DHL use to compare its carbon emissions?

DP DHL’s different businesses use different units to measure their CO2 efficiency. These different metrics are brought together in an index for the whole group which is used to track the group’s performance against its 30% CO2 efficiency target by 2020.

What sustainability activities are DHL involved with at the moment?

DHL is a big company, with around 500,000 employees operating in over 220 countries and territories. There are many different sustainability initiatives under way at any time. All these initiatives are grouped under DP DHL’s CSR strategy called Living Responsibility. There are three core programs under Living Responsibility; GoGreen, GoHelp and Go Teach.

GoGreen is the environmental programme making sure DP DHL uses resources in a responsible manner and minimizes the impact of its actions on the environment. Under GoHelp DP DHL uses its global presence, logistics network and experience in international relief to provide the ideal network for helping people impacted by natural disasters. Through Go Teach DHL supports better education and equal educational opportunities.

Under GoGreen special attention is paid to active climate protection and energy efficiency which DP DHL plans to improve by 30 percent from 2007 levels by the year 2020. GoGreen initiatives include improving the efficiency of our networks and those of our customers, improving the efficiency of our facilities and improving the efficiency of our transportation services.

Can DHL provide companies and individuals with carbon emissions data for individual packages?

GoGreen is a carbon-neutral shipping option for customers of DHL and Deutsche Post. With the GoGreen optional service, all transport-related emissions of carbon dioxide are first calculated and then offset through external climate protection projects. Customers who use the GoGreen service receive GoGreen stickers to place on their shipments, as well as an annual certificate stating the total amount of carbon dioxide which was offset on their behalf during the year.

What does DHL use to offset the emissions from the GoGreen shipping option?

In order to offer its carbon-neutral GoGreen shipping service, DP DHL needs carbon credits to offset the CO2 emissions from transporting its customers’ shipments. DP DHL purchases these carbon credits from the climate protection projects it invests in.

To meet its customers’ requirements, DP DHL only chooses climate protection projects of the highest standards. Generally, the minimum level is a VER (Voluntary Emission Reduction) with Gold Standard, a standard implemented by several international non-profit organizations. Most of the climate protection projects supported by Deutsche Post DHL also comply with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and provide CER (Certified Emission Reduction), an official carbon credit of the UNFCCC. CER’s are carbon credits following the rules of the Kyoto Protocol, thus ensuring carbon reductions, technology transfer and social benefits through the related climate protection projects.

Are you running a global environmental management system?

As DP DHL is such a big company and spread so widely different businesses use different EMS products depending on their business needs and operating environment.

Why do you focus on your carbon emissions?

DP DHL has a strong focus on carbon emissions because as a mail and logistics business CO2 emissions are our biggest impact on the environment. These emissions are from the vehicles, planes, ships and facilities used to transport and store our customer’s shipments. As we don’t manufacture products DP DHL’s consumption of resources such as water is relatively small.