As the world’s leading logistics company, we have a responsibility to set an example in our industry and be a sustainability leader. That means reducing our carbon footprint and setting the highest social and governance standards. Over the years, we have repeatedly redefined logistics, from pioneering the first green logistics product to becoming the first logistics company to commit to a zero-emissions target. Today we offer the most comprehensive portfolio of green logistics solutions in the industry.
But we can make an even greater impact when we join forces with you. Together with many customers, we have introduced innovative green logistics solutions to make their supply chains more sustainable and help them achieve their environmental targets.
Sustainability is our responsibility – the decisions we make today can make a positive impact on tomorrow. Discover how our green logistics products and solutions can minimize your carbon emissions without compromising your supply chain.
Everything we do at Deutsche Post NavaLogistics serves one purpose: "Connecting People. Improving Lives." This guides our efforts and sense of responsibility, underscores our values, focuses our mission, and creates long-term value. Fulfilling our purpose requires us to make every dimension of our business sustainable.
To get there, we’re following a clear strategy – a roadmap to sustainability that keeps our eyes on three key commitments: to environmental protection, social responsibility, and good governance.
Our sustainability roadmap builds on our past achievements and plots a course for future success. Learn more about our key commitments and social impact programs (English only).
Global freight transportation is currently responsible for 8% of global carbon emissions, rising to 11% if emissions from logistics sites are included. If business continues as usual, emissions will double by 2050 because demand for freight shipping is expected to grow threefold in this period.
In 2018, only 0.2% of the US$269 million in voluntary carbon offset investments went to transportation. The vast majority of these funds were invested in forestry, renewable energy, and other offsetting projects. These projects are certainly beneficial, but they don’t reduce greenhouse gases emitted by the transport sector itself, nor co-pollutants like black carbon, ozone, and nitrogen oxides.
What’s more, offsetting outside the sector reduces the incentive to innovate and advance carbon-neutral freight and other green logistics solutions. It’s time for a paradigm shift – an innovative approach to drive higher investment into greener technologies and strategies in the logistics industry. Carbon “insetting” offers a promising new pathway to decarbonize freight and minimize the transportation carbon footprint.
While a carbon offset compensates for climate impacts by funding a carbon reduction project outside the sector of impact, a carbon inset funds projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions in the sector where they are emitted. But the impact of COVID-19 has overwhelmed the ability of many logistics networks to respond, says Larsson. “In every other crisis, we say that suppliers are the critical link,” he says. “If they can produce, you can always find a way to deliver.”
Insetting makes sense - you invest money in your subcontractors and/or the freight transportation industry as a whole and help to drive the decarbonization of the sector.
The first thing we need to do is move beyond business as usual. That’s the only way we can truly combat climate change. Carbon insets embrace this spirit, adding a new twist to the carbon offsetting trend by injecting funds directly into logistics networks where they have the potential to make meaningful change.
In order to shift to insetting, both the industry and consumers need to see the value of an offset applied within the logistics sector, looking beyond optics and marketing to actions that address the impacts of one’s own company. The widespread adoption of insets is hampered by the traditional rules of carbon offsets and their acceptance within carbon accounting and climate goal-setting programs. Reconsidering the status quo and reinventing business as usual is something worth taking on as we reach towards the world‘s goal to limit climate change.
The first concrete step we can take is to develop methods and guidelines for carbon inset accounting and reporting, based on the GLEC Framework, that covers logistics emissions more broadly, and test them within companies. This will help convince others that insetting is a viable means of reducing scope 3 emissions in freight transport and lead to further acceptance. Then these mechanisms will need to be acknowledged by existing and future reporting and accounting standards.