With Black Friday approaching Paua selects five of our favourite sustainable parcel delivery companies

Black Friday is quickly approaching which is the beginning of the busiest time of year for parcel deliveries for suppliers, retailers, e-commerce stores and shoppers in preparation for Christmas. In 2020, Money.co.uk reported that the UK’s Black Friday produced 429,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Forbes compared this amount to be the equivalent of 435 return flights from London to New York. Luckily, the UK has seen an increase in green delivery services using electric vehicles and a rapidly improving electric charging infrastructure across the country in the past couple of years to counteract this issue, making the transition to electric fleets much smoother.

It is important to reflect on the importance of using a more sustainable delivery service for the planet and the community. According to the Royal College of Physicians in 2021, pollution has been linked to as many as 40,000 air pollution-related deaths every year. It has also been no secret that the increase of carbon emissions has been contributing to climate change.

Whether you rely on parcel delivery services for personal use or for business supply and distribution, you can keep an eye on the suppliers and companies you order from, if they are using sustainable delivery options to passively reduce your personal or professional carbon footprint and support greener companies. If your business relies on shipping, it can also prioritise using the delivery companies we explore in this article to ensure your business is using a more climate-friendly delivery solution. You might be surprised to find additional and more affordable benefits from these services too!

HIVED - a sustainable delivery market leader being born

HIVED is a relatively new company, they started their zero-emission delivery service in 2020, all of their deliveries are powered by humans on bikes and renewable electricity for their electric vehicles. They have made a remarkable first impression on the roads with their slick-designed yellow and black electric vans which are difficult to miss, their presentation is modern, cool and energetic, it is hard not to want to Google them or to feel like you want to be part of their mission. At Paua, we couldn’t help but connect with HIVED to offer our Paua app and EV charge card!

HIVED has improved the process of efficiently and sustainably arranging the delivery of a parcel from the warehouse to the recipient’s door with an optimised strategy that is scalable and more affordable for businesses.

HIVED’s delivery service promises a price guarantee to be cheaper than many current delivery providers, flat pricing for all deliveries in their delivery area, and there are no collection fees or weekend surcharges. HIVED offers same-day, next-day and two-day tracked and insured delivery.

HIVED uses our Paua app and EV charge card so their drivers can efficiently find over 20,000 available public charge points within our very large network group across the UK. Our fleet dashboard and app help the company manage their drivers’ charge sessions and we provide a single monthly invoice compiled with their entire fleet’s charging sessions. This helps drivers and accountants so they no longer have the need to go on a mission to find hundreds of crumpled or missing receipts for reimbursement and financial reporting. We hope this reduces a lot of the unnecessary admin steps so HIVED has more time for their exciting work, worry-free!

HIVED has an impressive collection of customers including Pip and Nut, Shrimps, Tate, Nudie Jeans co, Allpress Espresso, ASOS, Candy Kittens, Sproud, Minor Figures, Bird and Blend, Exalt, Grubby and more.

Royal Mail - the national institution delivering!

Royal Mail is a delivery institution in the UK with 85,000 postmen and women. Royal Mail reports to have the lowest CO2e emissions, with 221g CO2e per parcel, compared to many of the major UK delivery companies.  

In 2021, Royal Mail announced a deployment of 3,000 electric vehicles in their fleet and this year they have confirmed an order for another 2,000 electric vehicles with a goal to be operating with 5,500 EVs by Spring 2023. Royal Mail’s electric vans, maintaining their iconic red colour, are using the Peugeot Partner and Peugeot Expert vans. The Partner model can travel up to 171 miles per charge and the smaller Peugeot Expert has a range of up to 205 miles per charge. In May 2021, Royal Mail added 29 40-tonne biogas-powered trucks to its fleet.

The roll out of the electric vans has initially focused on ultra-low emission zones and green cities. Royal has also introduced all-electric Delivery Offices which feature an all-electric fleet of collection and delivery vehicles to go beyond last mile delivery.

Royal Mail is committed to providing a green delivery service for businesses and is leading by example. They have a goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2040.

Royal Mail continues to offer same day courier service, special delivery guaranteed by 9am or 1pm, next day delivery, 48-hour delivery and their standard delivery with options of adding insurance and tracking.

Some businesses that use Royal Mail for distribution are Selfridges, John Lewis, Vodafone and many more.

DPD - everybody's parcel company

DPD is another familiar delivery service which has been making the transition to electrifying their delivery fleet. In 2021, DPD made a deal with vehicle manufacturer MAXUS for 750 e DELIVER electric vans, doubling the portion of their electric fleet. As of this year, DPD has invested over £90m on all-electric vehicles in the UK, including the most recent acquisition of 1,000 Ford E-Transit vans in May 2022, making a total of 2,500 electric vans in their fleet.  

DPD is currently providing an all-electric delivery service to 10 UK towns and cities and aims to reach 30 all-electric locations by the end of 2023. The current ten select towns and cities are, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Hull, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Reading, Southampton and Stoke.

The company has been committed to their goal and has not purchased a diesel van since summer 2020. With a larger portion of DPD’s fleet going electric, they expect to deliver 26 million parcels this year with their electric vehicles, saving of 7,200,000kg of CO2.

DPD provides same day delivery, next day delivery, early morning delivery and is a trusted delivery service for businesses like John Lewis, Selfridges, Vodafone, TKMaxx, Next, Dyson, Ikea, Harrods, JD Sports, Currys and more.

Paack

Paack has a sustainability strategy which aims to achieve a 30% reduction in emissions from the half mile in 2025 compared to 2020 and to reach net-zero emissions by 2030. Paack recently has partnered with Volta trucks for testing the Volta Zero prototype for larger electric transportation for distribution. These are the world’s first electric 16 tonne trucks that have a range of up to 200 km and a payload capacity of up to 8,000 kg.

Paack offers a unique service to further help businesses reduce waste. Paack strategises their delivery routes and works with their partners to offer a collection of Nespresso recycling for their espresso pods and used Nike and Zara clothing to encourage responsible recycling and reuse of products without creating more trips on the road.

Paack’s electric vans are designed to carry parcels and other items and are much more efficient than their diesel-powered counterparts. Their electric fleets are powered by renewable energy sources like solar power and wind power.

Paack promises a 96% success rate at first delivery attempts. They prioritise optimised routing to maximise driver efficiency to travel less and deliver more. Paack also provides same day delivery, urgent and immediate delivery and next day delivery.

Some businesses that rely on Paack for their deliveries include: La Redoute, Mango, Loewe, H&M, Nespresso, Decathlon, Little Big Change, Rituals, Vodafone, Amazon and THG and Zara.

Evri

Evri is the rebranded delivery service formally known as Hermes. It is a Bristol-based company that uses specially designed Mercedes-Benz eSprinter electric vans which can deliver up to 60 parcels every hour. These vans have a rapid charging time and have efficient battery usage to be more sustainable and economical in the long run. Evri’s electric vans cost more than traditional vans but deliveries using these EVs run up to 75% cheaper per mile since they are not burning fuel.

Since Summer in 2022, Evri has been trialling an electric-powered delivery solution in Bristol with last mile company Zedify, using pedal-powered electric vehicles such as cargo bikes. This trial is to explore more green delivery methods and to reduce congestion and noise in cities and to make streets safer with less cars.

Evri provides delivery services for Ebay, Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, Not On The Highstreet, Woo Commerce and many more.

The future of greener delivery

Electric fleets are making deliveries more sustainable by cutting out emissions from diesel powered vehicles. It is exciting to see there are 100% emission-free delivery services, delivery services making the transition to an electric fleet, even if it is gradual, some companies are getting a little more creative using bike delivery alongside their vehicle delivery and some delivery services are prioritising more strategy for optimised and efficient delivery routes.

Electric vans are not only better for the environment, but they also offer many other benefits; they're cheaper to run due to lower fuel costs, less maintenance than traditional petrol/diesel vehicles, and zero emissions which is significantly better for air quality around urban areas.

It is promising to see tangible data that www.gov.uk released the first quarter of this year from vehicle licensing statistics, revealing that 51% of petrol cars were registered which is an 11% decrease from 2021, 8% of cars were diesel which is a 52% decrease from last year, 19% were hybrid which was a 33% increase from 2021 and 15% were battery electric which was a 102% increase from the prior year. This data proves more reason for delivery businesses to transition to electric fleets.

New innovations have meant that electric parcel delivery fleets are now a possibility and some of the biggest companies in the UK are using these electric fleets to revolutionise parcel delivery at an unprecedented scale, lowering carbon emissions. Choosing to use sustainable delivery services as a business or prioritising suppliers or companies that use the sustainable delivery companies is a simple way to contribute to the decrease of carbon emissions to protect your community and the planet.  

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