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UPS Adding Green Vehicles, Looks to Cut Emissions 12% by 2025

Paul Ausick

Published: June 27, 2017 12:40 pm

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 10:38 am

Package delivery giant United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) has said it plans to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in its fleet of delivery vehicles over the next three years by purchasing at least 25% of new non-conventionally powered vehicles. The company’s total ground fleet currently numbers about 114,000 of which about 8,300 are alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles.

In the company’s latest Sustainability Report, released Monday, the company set a goal of a 12% reduction in GHG emissions across its global ground operations by 2025.

The company’s aircraft fuel GHG emissions comprise 58% of UPS’s total emissions, but the company said it is not setting a target for an absolute reduction in airplane fuel consumption because there is no economically feasible alternative available.

UPS has set three targets it sees as critical to reducing GHG emissions:

• We’re aiming for 25 percent of total electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025, a significant increase from the less than 1 percent in 2016. We’ve already started, investing $18 million in on-site solar at eight U.S. facilities, which will expand our solar capacity nearly five-fold.
• We’re expanding our rolling laboratory, our fleet of more than 8,300 vehicles used to develop and test low-carbon fuels and technologies. By 2020, a quarter of annual vehicle purchases will be alternative fuel or advanced technology vehicles, up from 16 percent in 2016.
• By 2025, we’re sourcing 40 percent of all ground fuel from sources other than conventional gasoline and diesel, nearly double the ratio used in 2016.

Carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per package delivered — has dropped by 17.9% in U.S. small package operations, 9.1% in global airline fuel use and 30.9% in U.S. supply chain and freight operations.