UPS - Packaging

Improved express packaging while decreasing costs

The UPS project brought together two very different organizations to work toward the common goal of environmentally improved packaging: UPS, the world's largest express package delivery company, and Environmental Defense, a prominent environmental group dedicated to collaborating with market-leading companies to catalyze change.

UPS realized that rising to the challenge of environmentally improving its packaging could generate customer service benefits. The company also saw a real opportunity to advance its standing as an industry leader.

From the outset, both organizations recognized that while greening UPS's express packaging was necessary so was maintaining performance, appearance and cost-competitiveness. The results of the project set in motion remarkable changes in many aspects of the company's packaging, including:

• significantly decreased environmental impact,
• increased package functionality,
• greater ease of use and convenience for the customer,
• enhanced brand image,
• decreased costs, and
• increased opportunity for competitive advantage.

Moreover, because the benefits extend well beyond environmental improvements, the project has served as a model to other businesses of the many advantages that arise from examining products and operations through an environmental lens.

The environmental challenge

Environmental Defense joined forces worked with UPS while the company was developing its reusable Next Day Air envelope for overnight shipping (introduced in April, 1998). The project goals were to:

• decrease the amount of material used in packaging and the impact of its production,
• expand the use of reusable packaging,
• increase the post-consumer recycled content in plastic and paper envelopes and boxes and
• eliminate bleached paper in air express packaging.

Environmental results

The packaging action plan announced in November 1998 cuts across the spectrum of UPS's express packaging. Together, the new packaging improvements along with the reusable envelope reduce air pollution by almost 50 percent, cut wastewater discharge by more than 15 percent and use 12 percent less energy than previous UPS packaging. In addition, the initiatives save the company more than $1 million annually. The packaging changes include:

• Nearly doubling the amount of post-consumer recycled material in the UPS box, and using at least 80 percent post-consumer recycled material in the Express Letter.
• Eliminating the use of bleached paper in all express packaging.
• Reducing overall waste and pollution from production of shipping materials by an average of 13 percent.
• Introducing post-consumer recycled material into UPS' plastic PAK and reducing each PAK's weight by almost 10 percent.
• Market testing reusable options for UPS' box, tube and plastic PAK.

Progress and ripple effects

Since we issued our Preferred Packaging report in December of 1997, overnight shipping companies have made some notable improvements to their packaging.

• UPS, as a result of our partnership, made changes to all of its packaging in November 1998. Improvements included:
  • eliminating the use of bleached paper and
  • increasing the use of postconsumer recycled materials by 22%.
• The changes:
  • cut wastewater by more than 15%,
  • use 12% less energy, and
  • reduce virgin paper use by 34% compared to previous UPS packaging.
• October 1999: FedEx announced that it switched all of its bleached virgin paper envelopes to 100% recycled, minimum 35% postconsumer content paper. This change, which affects hundreds of millions of envelopes a year, saves almost 12,000 tons of trees annually.

Posted: 20-Jul-2007; Updated: 14-Sep-2009