Overview
We continue to remain focused on delivering climate actions and remain on track to reduce our carbon emissions by 50% by 2025 and to achieve net zero carbon emissions from our own operations by 2030.
The journey so far
Responsible consumption & production
Reducing our emissions
We reduced our emissions in 2022 by 3,395 tonnes of carbon, representing a reduction of 12% year-on-year and a 35% reduction since 2009. This was achieved as a result of ongoing improvements in energy management as well as in managing the heating and air conditioning systems in our properties. The continuing electrification of our fleet and the introduction of HVO fuel has contributed to a reduction in our Scope 1 transport fleet emissions by 2,683 tonnes of carbon. Additionally, emissions from road transport declined by 11% in 2022 as an additional 2.7 million km were travelled in our electric fleet and there are no NOx emissions from electric vehicles.
Carbon emissions of postal items
In 2022 we committed to sharing data with our peers in the IPC SMMS programme on emission factors for postal items and we will continue to work with our industry partners to standardise reporting of the emission factors. We have been working on providing an indicative calculation of emission factors for our letters, packets and parcels so as to provide our customers with information on the average emissions emitted. The emissions have been calculated on the basis of identifying the average weight of the letters and parcels and dividing this by the emissions in transporting them to their destination.
Reducing energy usage in our property portfolio
We continue to take steps to improve energy and environmental performance. In 2022, we reduced our overall energy usage by 12,795,406 kWh. This represents a reduction of 9.5% year-on-year and a 10.8% reduction from our pre-pandemic levels in 2019. In addition, we have improved the electrical usage efficiency per m2 from 72 kWh to 65 kWh, achieving a 14.47% improvement in efficiency in the electricity used.
In 2022 we undertook a number of energy management initiatives:
Energy Efficient Lighting
Following on from our successful replacement of all external lighting in our offices with energy efficient lighting in 2021 we completed the installation of internal energy efficient lighting throughout our property portfolio, meeting our ambition of replacing all lighting with energy efficient lighting in 2022. Our upgrade to energy efficient lighting has contributed to a reduction in our electricity usage by over 1 million kWh since 2019.
Heating
We continued our heating controls installation programme in 2022, with the development of a new energy monitoring data base. We also converted the bulk supply of our Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) to Bio LPG in 25 properties, saving approximately 140 tonnes of carbon emissions in 2022, and with an expectant saving in excess of 200 tonnes of carbon annually. Together these initiatives have improved efficiencies in our offices and resulted in a reduction of 660 tonnes of carbon emissions.
Concept properties
One of our key achievements in 2022 was the launch of our “Concept Properties” programme, which aims to test innovative technologies and sustainable living across selected An Post sites. This programme focussed on two properties in Wexford and Carlow which acted as templates
to explore the optimum use of different energy systems, alternative energy sources and public access to fast EV charging points, as we move towards retrofitting our property portfolio. We are aiming to retrofit our property portfolio to a minimum of BER (Building Energy Rating) “B3” standard, which will involve several strategies that balance energy demand across our premises such as:
- Improving insulation
- Installing heat pump systems
- Installing solar PV cells and battery electric storage systems
- Implementing smart energy management systems
- Upgrading of lighting systems to the highest energy
- standards.
Green Electricity
We renewed our electricity contract in 2022 and continue to purchase 100% green electricity from our electricity supplier, which is certified as being from renewable sources. We are also producing our own green electricity and in September 2022, we installed 219 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in our Carlow and Wexford Delivery Service Units which, along with our PV panels in Monaghan DSU, have generated 17.69 MWh of renewable electricity on our sites, over 800 kWh of which was given back to Ireland’s electricity grid to be used by the public and other companies.
