As the world celebrates 40 years of Earth Day, USPS® employees can take pride in more than 230 years of promoting a greener lifestyle. Throughout our history, we’ve championed new forms of transportation while keeping an eye on ways to minimize our environmental impact.
And with the largest fleet of civilian vehicles in the world — 217,000 — it’s important to our business, our communities, and our customers that we do just that.
It helps that we have the largest fleet of alternative-fuel capable delivery vehicles in the world as well. More than 44,000 of our four-wheeled vehicles can run on electricity, compressed natural gas, biodiesel, or E-85.
And let’s not forget our three-wheeled electric vehicles. T3s deliver mail in Texas, Florida, and California and cost only 2 cents a mile to operate.
Two wheels may seem old school to some, but they’re helping the Postal Service™ stay on the leading edge of green delivery. With more than 70 bicycles routes in Florida and Arizona, it’s estimated that USPS saves more than 15,000 gallons of gasoline each year and eliminates 50,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually through bicycle deliveries.
But the greenest of the green? Our more than 9,000 carrier routes that are delivered on foot. Our fleet of feet are among the smallest carbon footprints in their communities.
Of course, the Postal Service is doing more to lower its carbon footprint than just upgrading its fleet. In 2008, we began an aggressive campaign to lower petroleum-based fuel use 20 percent by 2015.
That’s in line with the timeline established by President Obama’s Executive Order 13514 for government agencies to reach that same reduction percentage. The Postal Service, as an independent federal agency, doesn’t come under the recent Executive Order but is voluntarily participating anyway.
In 2009, USPS reduced its petroleum fuel use by 4.5 percent while adding nearly one million delivery points to its network and continuing its record-setting delivery performance. Early 2010 indicators suggest we’ll remain on that trend.
Concern for the environment didn’t begin with Earth Day — it led to Earth Day. There were always Americans who cared enough about the earth to want to preserve it for future generations. Many of them were — and still are — USPS employees!
— Strategy and Program Management,
Sustainability, 4-22-10
