The sustainable development goals and shipments

Online shopping saves us a lot of time, but at the same time it means putting thousands of vans and trucks on the road in every city in Spain every day, something that can clash with the concept of sustainability.

What are the sustainable development goals?

These goals are 17 points proposed by the UN with the idea of making the world a better place, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity.

Among these 17 goals, we find, among others, ending poverty, zero hunger, affordable and clean energy, reducing inequalities, climate action and global partnerships to achieve the proposed goals.

This is not something that only concerns the different governments of the world; rather, all sectors (civil society, private sector, etc.) must work to achieve these goals. From both the producers' and consumers' point of view, actions can be taken, however small, to contribute to these goals.

Sustainable shipping and responsible consumption

In the case of logistics and courier companies, among the sustainable development goals set by the UN, the ones that directly apply are: sustainable cities and communities and climate action.

With the rise of e-commerce, we have grown accustomed to receiving parcels at our doorstep, with everything that entails, such as the increase in the number of delivery vehicles on the road. This, of course, is not the best thing for the planet, just as it is not ideal that everything we buy arrives within 24 hours or even less time in cities.

The challenge for courier companies is to commit to sustainable mobility, something we at InPost are already implementing, as we explain on our sustainability page.

The role of the customer and the company

From the customer's point of view, to meet the sustainable development goals, responsible consumption should begin to be put into practice, considering whether so many purchases are really necessary or whether they are truly needed. It also comes into play when considering choosing local or nearby commerce over large marketplaces that ship from other parts of the world.

On the part of companies, especially e-commerce businesses, they should give their customers the possibility of choosing several ways to receive their purchases, explaining that parcel pickup points like those we offer at InPost are the most sustainable and save a lot of CO₂ in their cities.

Sometimes, customers do not choose this type of shipping because they do not know about it or because the online store does not promote it enough, so emphasis should be placed on the fact that it is much better for sustainability, and for the customer's own convenience.

How does InPost contribute to sustainability?

At InPost we take sustainability very seriously, so much so that we are part of Companies for Sustainable Mobility and have the “Sustainable Delivery” seal, so we do everything in our power to ensure the sector pollutes as little as possible.

How do we achieve this? Thanks to a network of Punto Pack | Locker that are at the same time shipping and pickup locations, so the couriers who go to them never travel with empty vehicles, since at all these points they drop off and collect parcels. This means they move more shipments while driving less, and we must add that failed deliveries do not exist, since the small shops that serve as Punto Pack are open during business hours from Monday to Saturday.

The same happens with Lockers, smart lockers that are always operational so that our couriers can drop off shipments and take others to their new destinations.

This saves even more km for our InPost delivery vans, which means a huge reduction in the CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere, helping to alleviate global warming and making the air in the cities where we all live healthier, cleaner and more breathable.