What is Green Shipping?

Your business can benefit from eco-friendly shipping

Regardless of what you sell or offer, every customer can benefit from mindful and efficient shipping. But choosing an eco-delivery service doesn’t just help your consumer - it also helps the environment. In fact, studies suggest that well over half of customers favour products based on their sustainability credentials and impact on the environment.

But what exactly is green shipping and why should you make the switch?

The goal of green shipping is to minimise the impact of at-home delivery services on the environment by examining the factors around your delivery service that might be negatively affecting it, and then implementing eco-friendly alternatives offset these areas. Some shipping factors that affect the environment can include:

Carbon emissions

The convenience of delivery straight to your door increases the production of carbon emissions, especially if the delivery method doesn’t use energy-efficient vehicles. That’s why, at Evri, we’re already working on increasing the size of our green fleet to minimise their impact.

Ineffective packaging design

Excessive packaging, if it's not recyclable or made from sustainable materials, contributes to environmental waste by appearing in landfill. Equally, excessive packaging options also means delivery vehicles will be able to carry fewer packages during one trip. Resulting in more trips overall, which increases carbon emissions.

Increased consumption

Frequent shopping with short delivery intervals, such regularly ordering clothes online or multiple individual purchases in quick succession, leads to higher energy consumption and emissions from your business

woman sat at table applying brown tape to cardboard box

How are businesses making their shipping greener?

With eco-friendly services becoming more and more popular with customers around the world, businesses big and small are making changes to the way they ship goods so they can meet the expectations of this market. Some switches you can look out for include:

Reducing package sizes and weight
Using technology to optimise route planning for their shipping freights
Incentivising green shipping through financial penalties, discounts, or reward points
Charging more for fast delivery times, which could encourage users to use standard delivery services, meaning that couriers make less trips overall
Combining multiple items into eco-friendly packaging to save on waste.

Why should my business opt for a green delivery service?

First and foremost; customer loyalty. Simply put, businesses that can meet the growing demand for sustainably conscious practices, such as opting for eco-delivery, tend to attract and retain more customers overall. But customer loyalty isn’t the only bonus that comes with green shipping. In fact, there are plenty of other benefits you can enjoy, such as:

Positive brand reputation

Sustainable responsibility goes hand in hand with consumer trust, helping to position yourself as a leader in this area

Increased longevity

Adaptability to new best practices means long-term success for your business, making it easier for you to grow with market changes and trends

Efficiency improvements

Reduced energy consumption due to greener shipping, and therefore optimised logistics management, can lead to a healthier overall environmental strategy and even cost savings

Why do customers care about eco-shipping?

Most customers are aware that eco-friendly shipping practices coincide with a business’s effort to control their impact on the planet, hence why it can play such an important factor in which businesses customers choose to go with.

For example, a customer might choose a certain delivery company because it aligns with their own values surrounding sustainability. This in turn makes it easier for them to consciously reduce their carbon footprint with a green delivery service.

Simply put, customers who care about the environment’s well-being are actively choosing ways to lower their impact. So, by visibly showing how your business is complying with sustainability regulations, and offering evidence to prove this, you can tap into this market.

And as an added bonus, by being clear and upfront about how your business is reducing its carbon foot, you’ll instil far more trust in your new customers. This in turn will make it easier to retain them in the long run.

woman stood at door to home holding package

How can Evri make my business shipping more eco-friendly?

Here at Evri, many of our innovations can be integrated into your business’s shipping process to contribute to your sustainability journey. Below are just some of the key ways we can help:

Divert to Parcelshop and Locker

Customers can divert their parcel earlier in its journey to utilise ParcelShops and Lockers, which can reduce a parcel’s carbon footprint by an average of 45%.

Packageless returns

ParcelShop staff can package returns in an FSC-approved eco-friendly bag and consolidate them into containers, reducing the amount of driver collections and CO2 emissions.

E-cargo bikes

We’ve expanded this delivery model to 15 routes across the UK. Offering zero tailpipe emissions, these bikes are crucial in helping us move towards our business-wide net zero 2035 target.

Digital calling cards

We’ve reduced the number of printed paper slips we use by more than 70 million!

First-time delivery success

We’ve enhanced our tracking capabilities by employing geofencing and ‘Parcel Vision’ technology, as well as partnering with an innovative addressing service, what3words, to boost first-time delivery accuracy.

How to make eco-friendly changes in my business?

Every small contribution makes a difference. So, if you want your business to be more eco-friendly in the future, do your research and start small. Below are just some changes to consider in order to get your business’s sustainability journey off the ground:

Energy efficiency
Waste reduction
Recyclable packaging

On top of this, don’t forget to regularly assess and update your sustainability strategy to industry-specific standards.

What sustainable efforts are Evri making?

At Evri, we’re growing the biggest sustainable fleet of local Couriers in the industry thanks to our ongoing investment in technology and exploration of alternative fuels.

Here are just a few of the actions we are taking to improve our sustainability practices:

We’ve made huge strides in reducing our carbon footprint, with a 17.5% reduction in our direct and indirect emissions (Scope 1 and 2)
Our operations have been powered by 100% renewable electricity since 2021
30% of our ParcelShop routes are powered by electric vans
We’re currently trialling e-cargo bikes to enable zero-emission deliveries

Keep an eye on our website to learn more about our environment, social and governance strategy as we move towards our net zero carbon emissions target, which we aim to hit by 2035!

How can Evri make offering eco-delivery a breeze?

We favour environmental best practices, meaning if you send through us, we can ensure you make use of all of these nifty sending benefits:

Great value prices starting from as little as £2.62
Standard and Next Day delivery options
Flexible sending options from our ParcelShops, Lockers, and Couriers
End-to-end tracking via our website and App
Free parcel cover up to a value of £20*
Multiple parcel sending with our Bulk Integration tool

Check out our helpful guides hub for tips on sending parcels.

*Excludes Postable parcels

How can your business utilise green shipping?

Your business can benefit from eco-friendly shipping