Search Results for: sustainability

Postwatch’s evidence to the Independent Review of the Postal Market

Posted by | May 19, 2008 | |

Postwatch, the watchdog for postal services, has today submitted to the Independent Review Panel answers to forty questions principally relating to the provision of the universal postal service (UPS). Postwatch also submitted and published the research it commissioned about the value of the universal service to customers.

Millie Banerjee, CBE, Chair of Postwatch said: “Postwatch is doing all it can to help the Independent Review Panel come forward with recommendations that overtly take account of customer needs. Postwatch is a keen supporter of a sustainable universal postal service which meets the needs of senders and receivers. We are acutely aware that declining mail volumes and the recent announcement by the Royal Mail that the UPS has become loss making give customers real cause for concern about the future of the service they value.”

Postwatch’s research is wide ranging and assesses; whether the current universal service fulfils customer needs and expectations, the sustainability of the universal service in the light of market changes; and alternative mechanisms for funding the universal service.

A summary of the research into the User needs of the Universal Service is attached at the end of this release. The main points from the customer perspective being:
• Next day delivery, reliability (in terms of published performance target being met) and deliveries to the door are valued;
• The frequency of collections should be included in the UPS but no strong preference for more than 5 days a week;
• Strong support for one price goes everywhere postage and recognition that current postage prices are affordable; and
• Homes but not all businesses value 6 deliveries a week.

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Postmaster General embraces change (U.S)

Posted by | May 19, 2008 | |

Postmaster General John Potter told more than 3,000 people attending the National Postal Forum here today to look beyond the current economic downturn and continue to transition mail into the 21st Century.

“Despite the challenging economy, one thing that hasn’t changed is America’s confidence in the mail,” Potter told the packed room. “We owe it to America, to our clients and to ourselves not to overact to the situation at hand.”

Potter provided the Forum’s keynote address, discussing technology, environmental concerns and changes in federal law that gave the Postal Service greater pricing flexibility. The National Postal Forum is the mailing industry’s premiere trade show and event.

Consumer and business need for speedy and reliable service is growing. For mail to continue to be relevant, the industry must change to continue to provide business solutions.

Potter spoke about new technologies that are providing these solutions — Intelligent Mail Barcode and the Flat Sequencing System (FSS). FSS is new technology that will speed the sorting and delivery of large envelopes, catalogs and magazines, quadrupling productivity. FSS machines also will be able to read the Intelligent Mail Barcode, allowing mailers and the Postal Service to track mail throughout the sortation process, improving service and reducing costs to mailers and consumers.

He also encouraged mailers to respect consumer interest and concerns about the environment when creating and sending mail. Eco-friendly practices, programs and services are key to the future of the industry as more consumers chose to do business with companies that embrace green practices.

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USPS appoints Sam Pulcrano as corporate VP of sustainability

Posted by | May 19, 2008 | |

Sam Pulcrano was appointed the US Postal Service’s first corporate VP of sustainability today at the National Postal Forum in Anaheim, CA.

In his new position, Pulcrano will be responsible for coordinating all of the agency’s environmental and energy programs. According to the USPS, his first goals will be to create an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and then to initiate an action plan to reduce those emissions.

During his keynote address at the National Postal Forum, Postmaster General Jack Potter stressed the importance of the USPS “going green,” particularly in light of pending do-not-mail legislation in various states. People are concerned about what’s arriving in their mailboxes and companies need to address those concerns, he added.

At a press breakfast following the keynote address, Pulcrano said that the USPS is looking at all “opportunities to green the mail,” including the expansion of its recycling programs, among other initiatives.

In March, the USPS launched a pilot program that allows its customers to recycle small electronics like cell phones, digital cameras and iPods, as well as inkjet cartridges through the mail free of charge. The USPS has also launched pilot programs in Maine and Boston for recycling pharmaceuticals and compact florescent light bulbs, respectively. The USPS hopes to increase its revenues from its recycling efforts, Pulcrano said.

During his 33 years of service for the USPS, Pulcrano has held various positions. Most recently, he was the director of safety and environmental performance management. Responsible for about 600 employees, he oversaw the USPS’s environmental policies and programs, and its safety compliance and procedures.

At the USPS, Pulcrano also held the positions of safety manager, manager of labor relations, area manager for human resources and manager of contract administration for the American Postal Workers Union and National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

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TNT delivers world's largest zero emissions fleet (UK)

Posted by | May 12, 2008 | |

TNT launched the world’s largest fleet of zero emission vehicles, enabling it to reduce its carbon footprint by 1.3 million kg of CO² a year.

TNT’s new 100-strong fleet of unique battery-powered ‘Newton’ style delivery trucks will replace diesel equivalents over the next 18 months. The amount of CO² saved by the environmentally-friendly 7.5 tonne lorries will be enough to fill Wembley Stadium.

The Newton models, manufactured by Smith Electric Vehicles in Tyne and Wear, are the first ever pure electric vehicles in their class that can compete in performance terms with diesel equivalents and, at the same time, deliver a 100 pct reduction in CO² emissions and exhaust air pollutants at the point of use.

The first tranche of 50 trucks will initially operate from TNT locations in London, Basildon, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh, Enfield, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Luton, Northampton, Oxford, Paisley, Preston and Wolverhampton. In addition, TNT is also piloting other Smith Electric battery powered vans and trucks in the Netherlands, with a view to rolling them out across its wider European operations.

In 2007, TNT topped the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index achieving an overall rating of 91 out of a possible 100 – the highest recorded score of any company on the DJSI. The feat was all the more remarkable given the nature of TNT’s business.

TNT Express Services, in partnership with vehicle manufacturers, Smith Electric Vehicles, is unveiling the first trucks in the GBP 7 million ‘green fleet’ at the London Wetland Centre.

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Return to vendor

Posted by | May 7, 2008 | |

The privatisation of the Post Office was bound to fail. Like New Labour, it was a triumph of free-market dogma over common sense
Is this a red letter day for Royal Mail? The independent report commissioned by business minister John (“let’s celebrate the rich”) Hutton concluded that privatisation threatens services and brings no benefit to customers.
The creeping commercialisation of postal services is an example of free market dogma triumphing over common sense, creating disillusionment in politics and a growing sense of the loss of social fabric in our communities. It is hitting and hurting Labour in elections as the most vulnerable are left more isolated by closures. And what is more, it makes Gordon Brown’s job of establishing a clear sense of Britishness that much harder, when his policies undermine the status and standing of an institutions that goes a long way to deterring what it means to belong to this nation. So what has the last 10 years been all about?
What has happened to the Royal Mail serves as a symbol for all that is wrong with New Labour. Once you decide that economic efficiency is the means by which you deliver social justice, then the market become master of society. Blairism was built on the notion that the private sector is always more efficient than its public counterpart. To thrive in a global economy and reap the rewards required, the walls between what is private and what is public have to be knocked down. And with big business like TNT lobbying like mad to get into the profits, modernisation only meant the market.
The Tories wanted to privatise the Post Office and were stopped in their tracks for the only time by a clever union campaign that chimed with public concern. New Labour has deftly sidestepped a full-on confrontation and has instead bled the Royal Mail dry of funds while salami slicing the public ethos of this important institution.
The Post Office and our communities are now paying the price in under-investment, closures and the break-up of the service. But there is resistance and it’s not just from the good campaigning work of the post office union the CWU. Campaigns are being run across the country to save services with councils getting in on the act to prop them up. And it’s not even as if going into a post office is any fun. My local office is a misery of long queues and shelves of tatty stationery and cheap DVDs that never made it to general release. The management should be taken to task. But still we hanker for it. Because largely it works. Because it is a point of connection in our communities. Because letters and parcels are precious and we know from our experience of the like of the banks and BT that service in the private sector is often infuriatingly terrible.
Social institutions like the post office matter. They are the places in which values reside and can thrive. The Royal Mail is no bastion of socialism. But it is about universalism, equality, access and public ethos.
As such it serves a purpose to bind our society together. In these fractious and anxious times we should be celebrating such an important institution that builds society – unlike the market that weakens it.
Gordon Brown has said he is in listening mode. Perhaps we should all send him a letter calling on him to keep the Post Office public and invest in it – making its sustainability a litmus test of his ability to change.

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