24 more French towns and cities with low-emissions delivery vehicles
Faced with the exponential growth of e-shopping witnessed over the past few years and further boosted by the effects of the health crisis, the volume of parcels is constantly growing (+18% observed at Chronopost between 2021 and 2020 after 20% growth in 2019), resulting in an ever-increasing number of delivery vehicles in city centres.
Chronopost is now adding 360 low-emissions vehicles to its current fleet to reach a total of more than 1,000 vehicles in 41 towns and cities now being 100% delivered by low-emissions vehicles.
In just two years, Chronopost has gone from zero to 20% of parcels delivered using low-emissions vehicles and is targeting 1 in 2 parcels delivered emissions-free by 2025.
On the road to low-emissions delivery across the entire transport chain
In addition to its breakthroughs in last-mile delivery, Chronopost is now reducing the impact of its medium and long-distance routes by introducing NGV heavy goods vehicles.
From October 2021, Chronopost will operate some sixty daily NGV road links, which accounts for 36% of heavy goods vehicle road links in the Paris region and 400,000 km per year. The objective is to reach 20% of all road links covered by NGV (and Bio-NGV) heavy goods vehicles on a national scale by 2025.
These HGVs with lower fine-particle emissions will replace the diesel-powered HGVs used until now to transport parcels from Chronopost’s hubs located on the outskirts of cities and depots located in or near city centres. This shift means that more and more parcels will be handled by low-emissions vehicles across the entire transport chain, from pickup to delivery and long-distance haulage.
Martin Piechowski, Chairman of Chronopost, affirms:
“Chronopost delivers approximately 1 million parcels per day. As France’s leading express parcel delivery company, it is essential that we reduce our environmental footprint and create a knock-on effect for the industry. There is nothing new about this commitment: we had already reduced our CO2 emissions per parcel by 25% between 2015 and 2020. However, we are particularly proud of the fact that we have managed to maintain and intensify our efforts despite the health crisis, with a commitment to push even further in the years to come ”.
Since 2019, Chronopost has invested €25 million in transforming its fleet and reducing its impact on the environment (premises, recharging stations, vehicles and maintenance).
The Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility policy is assessed annually by Ecovadis, an independent rating agency. Chronopost is one of the top 5% of companies in its sector, with a score of 70/100 in 2020.
A responsible European delivery policy by GeoPost/DPDgroup under the leadership of Le Groupe La Poste
Chronopost’s approach is in line with the responsible delivery policy of its parent company, GeoPost/DPDgroup, a subsidiary of Le Groupe La Poste, which in October 2020 announced its commitment to deliver to 225 European cities using low-emissions delivery methods by 2025. One year on, GeoPost/DPDgroup has begun rolling out low-emissions vehicles in nearly 170 towns and cities across Europe, including over 90 in France. In total, Europe’s delivery fleets are now made up of more than 4,000 alternative vehicles (electric, natural gas and cargo bikes).
Le Groupe La Poste, which is committed to carbon neutrality, wants to be France’s and Europe’s number one ecological delivery company and has set itself the goal of cutting its CO2 emissions to a minimum (by optimising the number of kilometres travelled, reducing energy consumption by rolling out the world’s first fleet of electric vehicles, and by adopting an environmentally responsible approach to designing its services, etc.), as well as through offsetting all of its remaining emissions.
*41 conurbations concerned: accumulation of all cities below
**Auxerre, Bordeaux, Cannes, Chartres, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Nice, Rennes, Rouen, Saint Laurent du Var, Strasbourg, Toulouse and Villeurbanne
*** Albi, Annecy, Avignon, Brive, Caen, Grenoble, Le Mans, Metz, Mulhouse, Nancy, Narbonne, Nimes, Orleans, Pau, Perpignan, Poitiers, Quimper, Reims, Saint-Brieuc, Tours, Troyes, Valence, Valenciennes and Vannes
About Chronopost
Chronopost is the French leader in express delivery of parcels of up to 30kg to businesses and individual customers. Chronopost relies on a team of 4,100 employees and delivered over 210 million parcels in 2020. Chronopost delivers to 230 countries and territories around the world and has privileged access to DPDgroup’s worldwide network of Pickup points.
Chronopost is part of DPDgroup, the international parcel delivery network. DPDgroup is the parcel delivery network of GeoPost, a Le Groupe La Poste holding company with revenue of €11 billion in 2020.
Through innovative technology, local knowledge, dedicated customer service and a network of 19,555 pickup points (Chronopost depots, post offices and Pickup points), Chronopost offers the best possible customer experience both for senders and recipients. Chronopost fully offsets its CO2 emissions and delivers using low-emissions vehicles.
