Investment Trends in Sustainable Postal Processing Operations

Transcript for: Investment Trends in Sustainable Postal Processing Operations Podcast

Hello, everyone. My name is Kevin Russell Barak with the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General. I'm here today to talk about a recent OIG paper on sustainability. Governments, businesses, and consumers worldwide are increasingly committed to sustainability, and sustainability is a core commitment of the Postal Service's 10-year plan, Delivering for America, demonstrating this growing commitment. Postal and logistics operators around the world have started investing in greener infrastructure, reducing emissions across their processing operations.

To exploit this topic further. I'm excited to be joined by my colleague, Aaron Infancia. Aaron, please tell me more about the OIG, its research.

Thank you, Kevin. As he mentioned, governments and consumers are increasingly committed to sustainability. You know, on average, more than 90% of a typical business's overall carbon emissions is from its supply chain and much of those supply chain emissions come from the postal and logistics sector.

Transportation, packaging, materials, energy, and land use contribute to a large overall carbon footprint. And reducing emissions involves practicing sustainability within postal processing operations. In other words, it involves reducing the energy use and emissions associated with the sortation and distribution of mail and packages for delivery across an operator’s network.

That makes sense. And I know investing in sustainability is expensive, right? So at least in the short term. But could this expense reduce in operators long term costs?

Yes, it does. And that's right, Kevin. You know, investing in sustainable processing operations can actually give an operator a competitive edge. It reduces costs over time, and it can make an operator more appealing to potential customers focused on reducing emissions and living more sustainably.

Additionally, it helps operators comply with government policies. Many postal and logistic operators have set goals for net zero carbon emissions and some operators like Canada Post and LA Post and France have already achieved zero emissions in their last mile delivery.

That's very interesting. And you mentioned LA Post and Canada Post. Were there insights from other operators factored into this research?

Yes. So, to inform this effort, we really looked at the trends that are driving investments in sustainable pricing operations in the Postal Service as well as other organizations both in the United States and abroad. So, we looked at the practices of several post operations in other countries, including Australia Post, Deutsche Post in Germany and Post and in the Netherlands. For the United States, we examined the practices of domestic competitors like FedEx and UPS.

It sounds like you got a lot of perspectives speaking with so many different operators that play such an important role in the industry. Was there a common theme?

Yes, there are several themes that we go into detail in our research insight to promote sustainability. Operators indicated they are investing in the technology needed to generate renewable energy, like installing solar panels and wind turbines. Additionally, all operators are providing support for green transportation, like electric delivery vehicles. Operators also reported efforts to procure energy efficient processing equipment, as well as practicing sustainable land use, which can involve selecting less environmentally disruptive sites for new facilities, as well as repurposing existing facility space.

Lastly, reducing, reusing, and recycling material involved in pricing operations is becoming a key industry practice.

I can see this research being especially important as the Postal Service committed to sustainability under its 10-year plan. And didn't the agency also recently establish an environmental council?

It did. That's right, Kevin. The Postal Service has made sustainability a core commitment for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy, fuel and waste.

The agency has established an environmental council to promote sustainability across its operations, including its processing network, and the Postal Service has committed to a vehicle electrification strategy and is also pursuing initiatives to divert waste from landfill, install solar panels, and secured renewable energy from suppliers.

Those are great points. In general, this has been a very informative discussion to dive deeper into how postal operators are making their processes networks more environmentally sustainable.

Our listeners can read the full report, which is published on the OIG website at USPSOIG.gov. Thank you for your time, Aaron, and thanks to all of our listeners for joining us. Yes, thank you so much, Kevin. I really appreciate the opportunity.