Managing our environmental impacts

Environment governance

Royal Mail’s management of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) risks is part of the overall risk management framework of Royal Mail Group, in which the Board has overall responsibility for ensuring sound procedures. The Board delegates responsibility for reviewing the effectiveness of risk controls to its Audit and Risk Committee, Risk Management Committee and Finance Committee. The Royal Mail management team is responsible for the management of specific operational risks and developing actions to mitigate their impact.

At the same time, we have begun working to integrate the management of specific climate-related risks and opportunities into our company’s overarching risk management framework.

Download Royal Mail's 2021-22 Environment, Social and Governance Report.

Environmental management approach

Royal Mail’s environmental management system has been maintained in line with the BS EN ISO 14001 Management systems standard. Supporting procedures and guidance documents enable our sites to appropriately manage identified environmental aspects and associated impacts, as well as legal and other compliance requirements. All Parcelforce Worldwide operational sites and head office are certified to ISO 14001.

We will continue to review our ISO 14001 coverage and certification to ensure it remains appropriate for our business operations.
GLS has worked further on its environmental management system, which is also certified according to ISO 14001 across Europe.

Biodiversity

We recognise that business has both a direct and indirect impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This is through land and resource use, pollution, supply chains and investment decisions.