Year: 2008

Royal Mail Group employees lead the way in carbon offsetting (UK)

Posted by | Jan 14, 2008 | |

The Woodland Trust is challenging businesses to follow Royal Mail Group’s example in enabling its people to offset their carbon emissions by planting trees.

Already 130 employees from Royal Mail, Post Office Ltd and Parcelforce Worldwide have signed up to the newly launched scheme to give money direct from their wage packets to the Woodland Trust, which will enable the charity to plant and look after 2,500 trees in its 1,000 UK woods.

To find out how many trees the employees would have to plant to offset their annual carbon footprint and to get tips about how to reduce their emissions they used a revolutionary new carbon calculator called Ollie.

This calculator, developed by Royal Mail, asks employees about their home energy usage, as well as car and air travel before calculating how many trees will need to be planted to help offset their carbon footprints.

This is the first time a company’s employees have ever been given the opportunity to offset their residual carbon emissions tax free through their wage packets to a charity which specialises in UK woodland creation.

Now Royal Mail has launched the scheme internally the company has gifted the carbon calculator to the Woodland Trust, which is challenging other businesses to follow Royal Mail’s example and offer their employees the opportunity to help offset their carbon footprints.

Royal Mail staff are no strangers to giving to charity though their wage packets, which is called payroll giving. Royal Mail was among the first organisations to set up payroll giving in 1989 and its scheme is one of the largest in the UK. The calculator is being promoted directly in the workplace by representatives from Payroll Giving in Action, who help employees to do calculations and fill out pledge forms.

About 50,000 staff are currently signed up to payroll giving and during the last financial year gave more than GBP 2.6 million to charitable causes.

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DHL Express expands Swedish consumer parcel network

Posted by | Jan 14, 2008 | |

DHL Express Sweden has expanded its recently-created network of 1,100 Servicepoints for consumer parcel services through an agreement with Scandinavian retail group Reitan Servicehandel. The expanded service is a key part of DHL Express Nordic’s strategy for 2008.

Under the deal, Swedish consumers and SMEs will be able to drop off or pick up their parcels at DHL Servicepoints within 7-Eleven stores and Pressbyran newspaper kiosks and shops located across the country, DHL Express Sweden said in a statement.

Reitan Servicehandel operates 72 7-Eleven shops in Sweden in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Helsingborg and Malmo, while there are 318 Pressbyran outlets across the country attracting some 1.4 million customer visits a week, according to the group’s website.

DHL Express already has a network of 1,100 Servicepoints in Sweden operated as shop-in-shop services under contracts with a wide range of retailers. Private customers can hand in or collect their parcels at the Servicepoints.

Consumers sending parcels can book the shipment with DHL online and receive a shipment number to attach to the parcel. Payment is made directly to the retailer. Customers receiving parcels are informed by SMS or e-mail that their item is ready for collection.

The expanded service is a key part of DHL Express Nordic’s strategy for 2008 to strengthen its leading position in the region, said Martin Södergård, managing director of DHL Express Nordic.

The key aims were to intensify customer dialogue and make DHL Express more attractive as a potential partner by investing in service and improving access to products. “For me the Nordic region is a very exciting region because we have the chance to offer our customers a comprehensive product portfolio,” he commented. DHL Express Nordic, with 6,000 employees, covers Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the three Baltic states.

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TNT extends fleet after one year of Mercurio’s acquisition

Posted by | Jan 14, 2008 | |

The Expresso Mercúrio, acquired one year ago by Dutch group TNT Express, intends to buy more 100 trucks this year to attempt the projected growth of the demand for the road load transport because of the good moment of the Brazilian economy. ‘In 2008 the market goes to grow above two digits. It goes to be a better or at least equal as 2007’, believes the president of the TNT/Mercúrio, Robert Rodrigues, who esteem that the market of express deliveries has grown about 15 pct in 2007.
In 2007 97 trucks and 88 pick up/ delivery vans had been bought and, with the acquisition of this year, Mercúrio will have 1,5 a thousand proper vehicles, approximately, between trucks and vans. The company still uses about two thousand third-party vehicles, depending on the time of the year.
Last year Mercúrio also constructed a new hub in Joinville (SC) and this year intends to raise new ones in Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza and Recife. Rodrigues, however, prefers not to disclose the value of the investment to be made in 2008. ‘But will be at least higher than 5 pct of our liquid invoicing ‘, inform.
According to Rodrigues, last first year Mercurio had as goal the improvement of the management, nomination of the new direction and adjusting the management stile to TNT’s one, as sending systematic reports to the Head Office. From now on, as Rodrigues affirms, all the attention is focused to the business. ‘We will increase the performance to speed up the growth’, says.

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Kraft Foods expands business with DHL as its primary US express carrier

Posted by | Jan 14, 2008 | |

DHL announced that Kraft Foods has renewed and expanded its contract with DHL as its primary US express carrier. DHL will provide US express shipping services for Kraft Foods.

With annual revenues of more than USD 34 billion, Kraft Foods markets a broad portfolio of brands such as Kraft cheeses, dinners and dressings; Oscar Mayer meats; Philadelphia cream cheese; Nabisco cookies and crackers; Jacobs coffees and Milka chocolates.

DHL will provide express services for Kraft’s letters and small package shipments, including pickup and delivery of food product samples, point-of-sale advertising, inter-office documents and payroll, and product-sampling items – for Kraft vendors, plants, distribution centers, and its corporate offices.

DHL has also been chosen by Kraft Foods as a provider for US ground delivery and international express services.

“Kraft has been a valued partner for nearly 20 years,” said Charles Brewer, Executive Vice President of Sales, for DHL. “We are seeing many of the largest multi-national companies enhance their operations by leveraging DHL’s flexibility, customer-focused commitment, and ongoing US network enhancements.”

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Confidential details fall off the back of lorries

Posted by | Jan 14, 2008 | |

A box containing the banking details of 200 rich investors was found by the side of the road after apparently falling off the back of a courier’s van.

The container, which included cheques and other sensitive papers, was supposed to be safely carried between a Prudential building in Reading to a secure storage facility in Essex by a DHL courier. Instead, it wound up close to a motorway slip road.

Financial details of 200 wealthy investors, including three national lottery winners, were exposed as a result. Luckily, the box was discovered by a vehicle recovery driver on a roundabout close to the slip road for Junction 11 of the M4 near Reading in Berkshire. The documents have since been returned to Prudential.

Preliminary results from an investigation into the incident suggests that the box fell out of a van door that the DHL driver had failed to properly close. Prudential has suspended the use of DHL as a courier until the investigation is over, This is London reports.

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Japanese express service ties create strange bedfellows

Posted by | Jan 14, 2008 | |

The shifting express landscape in Japan is producing some unusual alliances. Concern about the international integrators encroaching on their turf has induced domestic rivals to form pacts with one another.

On December 18, All Nippon Airways, Kintetsu World Express and Nippon Express signed a memorandum of understanding to set up a joint venture company for international business-to-business express delivery service in Asia. Operations of the new company are slated to commence on April 1 of this year.

ANA will have a 34 percent stake in the new company and Nippon Express and Kintetsu will each take 28 percent, with the remaining 10 percent going to other forwarding companies.

The partners pointed to growth of international logistics and the need for integrated strategic distribution services as the main reasons for their alliance. They stressed the need in Asia for reliable logistics services that can support businesses with rapidly expanding production bases.

The new partnership seems to be a conflict of interest for ANA, which already formed a joint venture cargo airline with Japan Post that took to the air last year with a fleet of B767 freighters. However, the new carrier, which flies to a number of Asian destinations as well as to the US, has signalled that Japan Post’s volumes are not enough to fill the aircraft, so it has been looking for partners to generate more cargo. A planned partnership between Japan Post and TNT has failed to materialise.

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