Deep dive into our Green Initiatives, from 100% recyclable bags to 100% sustainably sourced electricity at our 50 sites
With COP26 taking place this month, our impact on our environment and ensuring we are a sustainable and forward-thinking business is high on everyone’s agenda. With big efforts being made to reduce our CO2 emissions through identifying alternative delivery methods and to use alternative fuels publicly shared, we have smaller initiatives internally where big steps are being made to be green at Yodel. We spoke to Gemma Downey, Head of Network Support Services about the efforts being made across our operational sites.
“My team and I ensure that all our sites – national sorts, local depots or our support function offices are well-equipped with everything needed to safeguard our colleagues’ health, wellbeing and safety when working. We identified key areas where we could impact Yodel’s sustainability efforts and made it a key part of our procurement strategy. As part of this initiative, As part of this initiative, I am delighted to be able to say that Yodel are leading the way in using 100% recyclable post bags. Our bags are produced using shells that would previously have been discarded, reducing our reliance on plastic and are able to be recycled.”
“We have a fantastic relationship with our supplier, Ideal365, who understands our desire to not only reduce our impact on our planet but also to use products that can be attributed to coming from ethically sound supply chains.” “Once we started identifying opportunities to trade our bags at our operational sites for greener alternatives, we couldn’t stop! We’ve been able to secure 100% recyclable bin bags and security bags, which means we are currently on track to remove all plastic bags within Yodel by December. This will mean we have removed 1,295,000 plastic bags a year – a fantastic effort. Next on the agenda is introducing recyclable shrink-wrap with an aim to remove all single-use plastic within our operations in the next 12 months.”
“As part of that target, we’re consolidating our cleaning products and purchasing larger quantities and decanting into smaller, multi-use vessels. We’re even able to brand our new containers so we can be greener and proud to represent Yodel at the same time. These products are powerful, effective and safer than many cleaning chemicals. All are non-toxic, non-flammable, non-carcinogenic and non-harmful to marine and aquatic life and made from plant based, environmentally friendly ingredients.”
“With our industry-leading efforts being made with fuel supply for our fleet out on the road, we knew we needed to match these with our vehicles used under the roof. Across our sites, we have 25 forklift trucks, which are run on gas. We are in the process of migrating all our gas-powered vehicles within our depots and national hubs over to BioLPG, reducing our carbon emissions by 40% this year and reducing further year on year.”
“We didn’t stop there either – we recently updated our electricity source across our 50 sites so we are powering all Yodel locations with 100% sustainably sourced electricity.
We’re thrilled with our efforts and achievements so far in this space and can’t wait to see how far we can take it.”