Greenhouse Gas Emissions Decrease by Nearly 1 Million Metric Tons

WASHINGTON — Demonstrating its continued commitment to sustainability excellence, the U.S. Postal Service recently published its 2011 Annual Sustainability Report which highlighted achievements, including a 7.4 percent decrease in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a fiscal year (FY) 2008 baseline. The reduction of almost 985,000 metric tons of CO2 is equal to removing nearly 200,000 passenger vehicles from the road for a year.

“These results illustrate the Postal Service’s commitment to reduce our GHG emissions 20 percent by fiscal year 2020,” said Thomas G. Day, chief sustainability officer. “Our ‘leaner, greener, smarter and faster’ conservation efforts have placed us more than one third of the way to our goal and when the Postal Service is more efficient, everyone benefits.”

“The Postal Service’s vision is to be a sustainability leader by building a culture of conservation throughout the Postal Service, and implementing sustainable business practices by engaging employees, customers, suppliers, mail service providers and federal peers,” added Day.

America’s largest retail network of 33,000 buildings — totaling 280 million square feet — takes a lot of energy to run and the Postal Service is aggressively working to reduce energy consumption with cutting-edge energy auditing systems. The Utility Management System and the Enterprise Energy Management System measure and track energy use and are valuable tools helping the agency reach its goal to reduce energy use 30 percent by 2015.

“World-class energy management practices helped the Postal Service decrease energy use by 8.6 trillion Btus from our baseline, more than 25 percent. This is an amount equal to the average energy used annually by approximately 90,000 American households,” concluded Day.

Other factors supporting the Postal Service’s positive GHG results are:

• Green employees — more than 400 Lean Green Teams produced significant results in energy reduction and resource conservation.
• Green information technology — consolidation of data centers into two locations, maximizing energy efficiency.
• Green vehicles — nearly 41,000 alternative fuel-capable delivery vehicles, including compressed natural gas, ethanol, propane, bio diesel, hybrid and electric three-wheeled vehicles. Between 2005 and 2011, USPS has increased its use of alternative fuels 128 percent.
• Green mail delivery — more than 8,000 “fleet of feet” walking routes, more than 60 bicycle routes and nearly 75,000 “park and loop” routes, where carriers deliver mail on foot after driving to neighborhoods.

USPS also helps customers calculate and reduce their own carbon footprints. Visit usps.com/green and the usps green newsroom to learn more about the Postal Service’s sustainability initiatives and the Go Green Forever stamps.

This year, the 2011 Annual Sustainability Reportcan also be found on Slideshare at:
http://www.slideshare.net/dcasey_usps_com/us-postal-service-annual-sustainability-report-2011-061312

The Postal Service has won numerous environmental honors, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) WasteWise Partner of the Year award in 2010 and 2011, the EPA’s National Partnership for Environmental Priorities award in 2011 and the Climate Registry Gold award in 2011.

USPS participates in the International Post Corporation’s Environmental Measurement and Monitoring System, the global postal industry’s program to reduce its carbon footprint 20 percent by 2020 based on an FY 2008 baseline.