Postal Service’s Green Initiatives Pay Off in Latest USPS Sustainability Report
The Postal Service™ is known for its iconic delivery vehicles and blue collection boxes, but did you know we are also making efforts to be greener?
We work hard every day across the United States and US Territories to reduce our impact to the Earth while delivering mail to our nation’s homes and businesses. Simple steps such as taking the most efficient route when driving helps us to reduce our delivery vehicle fuel usage. In addition, we work on large impact projects such as installing a state-of-the-art solar power generation system in California.
Each year we measure our progress toward our sustainability goals and share our performance with our customers. The Annual Sustainability Report communicates information on the past year’s achievements and gives a sneak peek into our plans for the coming year.
2017 energy reduction
This year we are proud to report that we have reduced our energy usage per square foot by 4.1% since 2015. This is a great step towardsachieving our energy reduction goal of 25% by 2025.
We have also reduced our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 19.3% since 2008. Our goal is to reduce them by 25% by 2025 as well.
Scope 1 emissions are from delivery vehicle fuel and heating fuel in our buildings.
Scope 2 emissions are from electricity usage in our Post Office™ locations, mail processing facilities and other buildings through-out the country.
Sustainability is about more than just environmental goals and we want our customers to know that the Postal Service cares about sustainability in the broad sense of the word. It includes goals related to our business impacts on society and the economy.
For the US Postal Service, being sustainable means that we can continue to play an important role in America’s economy and society just as we have for more than 240 years. That’s why we also share information in our report on controllable income goals, our new Informed Delivery® features and the way our employees help communities across the United States with the Stamp Out Hunger® nationwide food drive.
Transparency is another key to sustainability. Our Annual Sustainability Report follows the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. These are recognized worldwide as a structured way for companies to share their impacts with their customers, employees, and other stakeholders. Our report relies on information and feedback from both internal and external stakeholders. This ensures that our report is transparent and relevant to those we serve across the nation.
Be sure to check out our report soon! You may be surprised to learn that we are greener than you think.