UPU News:-World Environment Day: Posts committed to global efforts

It’s World Environment Day (WED), and Posts worldwide are doing their part to fight climate change.

This includes the Posts of small island States, the focus of this year’s celebrations surfing on the theme “Raise your voice, not sea level”.

In Mauritius, the Post has joined the national carbon footprint mitigation project alongside leading government and private organizations. The Post constantly reminds its 1,200 staff to save energy, plants trees in post-office courtyards or creates green spaces where it can, and manages waste ecologically. Green bags are found in the country’s 100 post offices for customers to drop off their used envelopes for recycling. “This initiative is a great success. We collect hundreds of kilogrammes of waste every month,” says Michel Peechen, head of operations and sustainable development at Mauritius Post.

It also collects and recycles used batteries and mobile phones in partnership with mobile operator Mauritius Telecom. It has also reduced the number of mail delivery rounds and trained its drivers on ecodriving.

In Barbados, WED’s host country, the Barbados Postal Service is progressively implementing green initiatives to support the government’s environment aims.

Senior Postal Superintendent Marcia Greene says LED lighting has replaced fluorescent bulbs, staff are asked to turn off or unplug electrical equipment when not in use, and employees are being trained on how to minimize waste by applying the 4Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle and recover.

UPU inventory

Each action counts in the fight against climate change, says the UPU’s sustainable development and partnerships manager, Olivier Boussard, who oversees the organization’s annual greenhouse gas emissions survey among the organization’s 192 member countries and their postal operators.

The UPU will soon issue its fifth annual questionnaire to monitor postal operators’ carbon footprint and help them reduce their impact on the environment. Posts worldwide are already making their buildings more energy efficient, rationalizing their delivery routes to save gas and increasingly using electric vehicles, bicycles and other alternative vehicles to reduce their carbon footprint.

In 2012, the world's Posts generated an estimated 60 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, according to the UPU’s latest annual carbon inventory. That’s only 0.9% of the transport sector’s total emissions, but more can be done to make postal activities more environmentally friendly.

The UPU regularly organizes training on sustainable development initiatives in regions, with the next workshop scheduled for November 2014 in Barbados for the Posts of the Caribbean region.

Upcoming UN summit

As a member of the United Nations family, the UPU is committed to helping the world improve the environment and fight climate change as the UN gets ready to host an important climate summit on 23 September to mobilize the political will to reach a universal agreement in 2015 on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, after the mitigated success achieved in Copenhagen in 2009.