3 Steps for Effectively Implementing Sustainability Strategies

Sustainability needs to be effectively integrated into the core of the business for it to flourish. An example of a sector that is struggling to put sustainability into practice is the transportation sector – evident from its 21.7% contribution to the total CO2 emissions of the European economy in 2018. A sustainability strategy must directly connect to a company’s must-win battles. Such a strategy can be made actionable through the development of roadmaps, well-prioritized actions, and convincing communications. This article looks further into ways to effectively implement a sustainability strategy with an example of transportation company Farm Trans, that strives to be a frontrunner in sustainability in the sector.

The Future of Post: Transforming beyond GHG

The postal industry is experiencing a transformational shift, caused by rapid globalization, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the immense growth of e-commerce. Postal companies provide an indispensable service to society each day. However, with home parcel delivery growing by 16.5% in 2020, their impact on society and the environment also increased significantly. Moreover, the UN estimated that more than 70% of the world’s population will live in densely populated areas by 2050. Increasing demand for freight transport will require effectively managing these impacts, to turn them from risks into opportunities.

The Sharing Economy's Circular Business Opportunities

The Dutch climate agreement and recent developments in the carsharing market present business opportunities to tap into the circular economy and bounce back better. Car sharing not only reduces the administrative and financial burden of company cars but also decreases emissions and congestion, which lead to better ESG performance. It also paves the road for a more circular automotive industry by incentivizing manufacturers to retain ownership of cars and maximizing their useful life.

Building Back Better: A Positive Outlook on the Post-Covid Economy

The World Economic Forum kicked off 2021 with its Annual Meeting - the year in which we hope to leave COVID-19 behind us. It is clear that we are not out of the woods yet, but the pandemic crisis has also revealed other underlying issues. It has amplified existing inequalities – there are those who have access to work, healthcare, education and digital technologies and those who have not – and has particularly exposed the many shortcomings of our current systems. The more reason for countries and companies to look into opportunities to emerge stronger and more sustainably. The pandemic has hastened the need for transformations and to #BuildBackBetter.

Paving the Impact Measurement & Valuation Pathway

To really make changes based on sustainability information, companies need to know how to value that information. Today, top management of two sustainability consultancies – Eric Mieras of PRé and Jan van der Kaaij of Finch & Beak – share their united vision of the way forward.

Reverse Logistics: Sustainability's Next Frontier?

With the rise of sustainability, reverse logistics is one of the next frontiers for retailers and manufacturers around the globe. In a 100% circular economy, the return flow is equal to the volume of the original transaction. According to Optoro, a UPS-backed service provider focused on eliminating waste from returns, the retail industry is far from achieving such circularity. In its Retailer Sustainability Research on 128 prominent U.S. and global retailers, the company found that less than 1/4 of the retailers analyzed were implementing programs and adopting initiatives to advance the circular economy and only 30% of retailers implemented product take-back or recycling programs for consumers.

Launch of the World Ports Sustainability Program

The newly created World Ports Sustainability Program (WPSP) will be launched on March 22 and 23, 2018 in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium. Ports are critical points in the global supply chain and play a crucial role in working to improve the sustainable performance of the supply chain on a local as well as on the global scale. The WPSP will bring together the international ports community in order to contribute to a sustainable future.

Eneco: Dutch Windmills are Moving Trains

Dutch railway company NS has announced that as of the beginning of 2017, all public transport trains in the Netherlands are being powered entirely by 100% renewable energy sources, namely wind power.

Climate Goals: How Postal Companies are Beating COP21

Early December, Paris will be flooded by global leaders from governments, businesses, NGO's and civil society organizations to join COP21. Sustainability practitioners from all over the world will bend their heads over how to achieve the climate change goals on a global scale. Although the negative messages about governments not reaching climate objectives for 2020 kept us busy lately, there are still evidential cases for reducing the carbon footprint in time. One of those success stories is coming from the postal industry, where the International Post Corporation (IPC) announced that the sector's participants have reached the 2020 ambition of reducing 20% CO2 emissions already in 2014.

Turning Your Tesla into a Green Clean Money Machine

As early as 1505, Emperor Maximilian had the vision to establish a postal network in the European Empire, appointing Franz von Taxis to run it. After the collapse of the Empire in the beginning of the 19th Century, the Thurn and Taxis postal system continued as a seperate organization. In current times, with new technologies and postal volumes dropping between 3-9% annually such a network is no longer required. But what can we learn from history when smart charging is applied in the roll-out of the European electrical vehicles recharging network?