Zero emission deliveries
Royal Mail’s 85,000 posties walk up to a billion steps a day, which helps us to be the greenest option for parcels. Just over half of our delivery routes are wholly or partially on foot.
Even so, around 13% of our overall emissions are from final mile deliveries and our goal is to reduce this to zero through initiatives that include:
- The deployment of electric vans, of which we have deployed 5,000 to date.
- Trialling new innovations for zero and reduced emissions deliveries including drones for remote locations, micro electric vehicles and a programme to optimise on-foot deliveries with a van delivering to a central point, serving a number of posties on foot.
Our Steps to zero journey
How Royal Mail are delivering a sustainable future
We are committed to providing sustainable services for our customers and communities as we deliver against our environmental ambitions.
We are working hard to reduce the emissions of our operations. Building on our network of on-foot deliveries, we are rolling out electric vans, trialling low-emission trucks and using renewable energy to power our buildings to help reduce our emissions even further.
As a result, we have a growing number of all-electric delivery offices, in which all deliveries are zero emission, while almost all our buildings are now powered by 100% renewable electricity.
We have the UK’s largest electric fleet of any major UK parcel operator, with 5,000 electric vans in service today.
We continue to trial other alternative fuel vehicles such as micro electric and hydrogen vehicles, as well as other delivery models – including delivery by drone!
Our network of over 85,000 posties means we can also collect your parcel while we’re out delivering. By reducing the number of journeys we can help bring down emissions and congestion levels.
Our unique ‘feet on the street’ delivery model significantly contributes to keeping our emissions low when compared to our competitors. Over half of our parcel delivery routes are wholly or partially on foot, while 21% of our delivery routes are now zero emission.
Please take a look at our 2022-23 Environment, Social and Governance Report report.