Senior Director, Environmental Affairs and Corporate Sustainability
Building a Greener, Cleaner Postal Service
Earth Day holds a special place in my heart. Every April 22, people around the world celebrate the global sustainability movement and recognize the achievements we’ve made on our journey to creating a cleaner, safer world. This year’s Earth Day is particularly meaningful for the United States Postal Service as we celebrate our new, ambitious sustainability commitment — a bold step forward powered by our Delivering for America transformation plan that will cement the organization’s role as a leader in environmental sustainability.
Delivering for America’s vision of a more efficient and reliable Postal Service is a win for the environment. We are eliminating unnecessary air and road trips and optimizing the journeys we need to take. We are using less fuel and energy, reducing waste at every level of our operation, and recycling and reusing as much material as possible.
By 2030, under our Delivering for America transformation, we will have invested $40 billion in new facilities, modern technologies, faster automation, more than 100,000 new vehicles — of which at least 66,000 will be battery-powered — and so much more. These improvements seek to reduce our carbon footprint.
In 2023, we set up an Environmental Council to help guide the organization as we put our sustainability strategy into practice, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy use and waste at every level of our operation.
Our strategy’s ambitious targets include a 40 percent cut in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the fuel we burn and the electricity we purchase and another 20 percent drop in GHG emissions from the services we purchase — changes that will reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by more than 3.5 million metric tons compared to our 2021 baseline.
We will also target diverting 75 percent of our waste from landfills, growing environmental awareness in our more than 640,000 employees and stakeholders and refocusing packaging procurement with an eye to recyclability and reusability.
As I recently told the hosts of the Postal Service’s “Mailin’ It!” podcast, you’ll see over seven years a dramatic reduction in our environmental footprint.
Our fleet of purpose-built Next Generation Delivery Vehicles will also be fully deployed, providing a highly visible, daily reminder that we are a new USPS, one that is committed to being the environmentally friendly shipper and mail provider that our customers and partners expect us to be.
Our aspirations are ambitious but achievable. They also prove that embracing environmental sustainability is a winning strategy — and that’s certainly worth celebrating this Earth Day.
Jennifer Beiro-Réveillé
Senior Director, Environmental Affairs and Corporate Sustainability