CPL – TNT, DPWN take up the environmental challenge
TNT and Deutsche Post World Net are responding to the environmental challenges facing the CEP sector with a wide range of similar operational measures but are taking a divergent strategic approach on the issue of “green” products, the CPL Summit in Barcelona this week heard.
Presenting TNT’s new “Planet Me” environmental program, Carin ten Hage, project director social responsibility, stressed the importance of a comprehensive program covering not only operations but also issues such as company cars, business travel and employees’ private lifestyles.
But TNT had deliberately decided not to introduce any “green” products in the style of DHL’s GoGreen services, ten Hage noted. “We don’t want to have a green product, we want to be a green product,” she commented. “If you use us, then you know you are using a company that does everything it can to reduce emissions.”
TNT plans, for example, to put pressure on vehicle manufacturers to do more to produce cleaner engines and fuels with lower emissions, ten Hage pointed out. But TNT would only gradually extend the Planet Me programme to sub-contractors, who themselves had an extensive environmental “footprint”, she added.
Winfried Häser, DPWN director of environmental strategy and policy, outlined the German group’s three-tier environmental management approach of measuring, reducing and finally replacing emissions through various carbon-neutral GoGreen products. However, the latter services, now available in selected markets, were still “niche” products at present, he said.
In an overview of the challenges facing the CEP industry on environmental issues as it continues to grow on a worldwide scale, CEP-Research chief editor Paul Needham warned that external pressure from stakeholders would grow in the years to come, with harder-hitting regulations to follow.
Although individual companies were so far responding with diverse activities at an operational level, and progress towards comprehensive environmental strategies was being made, express and parcel companies generally needed to do much more to reach out to their customers and persuade them to pay a “green premium” for products and services designed to reduce environmental impact, he said.
In response to questions, the DPWN and TNT representatives disagreed on the readiness of retail customers to pay a “green premium” for express and parcel services. While Häser commented that retail customers were more ready than business customers to pay extra, ten Hage cited research showing the opposite and stressed the importance of educating customers first.
