Barclays Capital has chosen DHL Express’ DHL GOGREEN Carbon Neutral service to offset carbon emissions generated by international courier services throughout Asia Pacific − the first time the bank has adopted a region-wide carbon offset solution.
DHL GOGREEN Carbon Neutral service is designed to offer companies a more environmentally-responsible shipping option by calculating carbon emissions generated by transporting each shipment point to point. Emissions are offset by reinvesting in certified carbon management programs such as a biomass and a hydro power plant in India and Brazil and a wind farm in China. Since signing up for the service in June 2010, DHL Express has offset 33,420kg for Barclays Capital in Asia Pacific.
In 2007, Barclays made a commitment to make our global banking operations carbon neutral and in 2009 we met our goal,” said Andrew Watt, Head of Corporate Real Estate Services, Asia Pacific at Barclays Capital. “To date, Barclays has purchased and cancelled over one million carbon credits and we are now focused on innovative strategies for the future to assess how a global financial services provider should be operating in the low carbon economy. We believe that all companies should strike the right balance between taking ownership of emissions reduction in their own operations and carbon offsetting and we are excited to sign up for the DHL GOGREEN Carbon Neutral service which is robust, innovative and independently audited."
DHL GOGREEN customers can choose to send all or a selection of their international shipments using the DHL GOGREEN Carbon Neutral service. For a surcharge, DHL will offset the carbon emissions for international air express shipments. Ensuring accountability and transparency, the program is annually verified by an independent certifying body – the Swiss-based Société Générale de Surveillance. Customers receive certification from DHL stating the total amount of CO2 offset on their behalf during the year.
Energy efficiency is the largest ecological challenge that we face in the transportation sector. As a group, we are looking at innovative ways to reduce our resource use and our carbon footprint, while responding to the increasing demands of customers such as Barclays Capital who are looking for an environmentally responsible shipping option,” said Lindsay Birley, Senior Vice President of Sales, DHL Express Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. “As the world’s leading express and logistics company, we have a responsibility to address the environmental challenge and create sustainable logistics solutions like the DHL GOGREEN Carbon Neutral service."
Barclays Group sets three-year environmental performance targets worldwide, managed through a Group-wide Environmental Management System (EMS) – certified to ISO 14001. By the end of 2011, the group plans to have cut carbon dioxide emissions, energy and water usage by 6 per cent per employee worldwide. It also supports individual business units to seek ISO standard certification for their local EMS and Barclays Capital operations in Europe and in Singapore have achieved this. In the US, Barclays Capital is consolidating eight data centres into four key sites to reduce electricity consumption by approximately 4.4 per cent. In Asia Pacific, besides signing up for DHL GOGREEN, Barclays Capital in Singapore has raised data centre temperatures and cut energy required to chill the water used for cooling by 37 per cent.
DHL’s own global sustainability program aims to improve carbon efficiency by 30 percent by 2020 with strict targets to reduce emissions per package sent, ton transported and square meter of real estate used by 10 percent by 2012, and 30 percent by 2020 [benchmarked to 2007 levels]. This year DHL Express Asia Pacific, which includes over 1,000 facilities in 27 markets, achieved a 19 per cent improvement in carbon efficiency year-on-year, reducing CO2 emissions by 13 million kilograms and saving €10 million in overall energy and ground vehicular fuel costs.
Andrew Watt continued, “As a group, Barclays has serious long-term global sustainability goals and to achieve those we need to partner with businesses that have robust and innovative environmental policies and services, such as DHL Express. DHL GOGREEN is a vital step on our journey towards reducing our global carbon footprint.”
