The popularity of e-commerce continues to grow, which makes it even more important to build it on a sustainable foundation. We started to use Neste MY renewable diesel because using renewable fuels is the fastest way to reduce the greenhouse emissions generated by e-commerce logistics.
The volume of parcels delivered by us has increased sharply in the last few years, with millions of parcels delivered every week last spring. Previously, similar delivery volumes were only reached during the busiest periods of the year, such as Black Friday or Christmas. Our own fleet covers roughly 40 percent of the parcel deliveries in Finland.
A survey we commissioned revealed that the emission differences between online stores and brick-and-mortar stores are mainly created in the last kilometer, i.e. on the way from the distribution center to the consumer. By calculation, delivering one parcel from a distribution center to a pickup point generates on average 600 g of greenhouse gas emissions, which corresponds to approximately five kilometers driven in a normal passenger car.
By adopting the renewable Neste MY diesel, we can influence this critical stage and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 3.8 million kg annually. This is the equivalent of removing nearly 1,300 cars from traffic. The effects will be particularly evident in the areas of Finland’s big cities, where most of the deliveries occur.
We also use other renewable fuels besides biodiesel. For example, we use biogas in our heavy vehicles. In our basic delivery operations, we make extensive use of various kinds of electric vehicles.