Webmart is planning to extend its Enviromail product to offer a cradle to cradle carbon calculation for direct mail, door drop and other home delivery campaigns.
The company introduced Enviromail in July last year and already has handled close to 7 million items, calculating the carbon impact of delivery and offsetting twice that amount via validated schemes. It has worked for the likes of charities, home delivery and sustainably minded businesses. Webmart sales and marketing director Tom Maskill mentions shoe retailer Pavers where Enviromail dovetails the customer’s own sustainability strategies. Pavers became the UK’s first carbon neutral shoe retailer last year.
“We have won new business on the back of this offering,” he says. The calculator can cover direct mail, door drop, partially addressed mail and programmatic mailings.
Its carbon calculator can work out how much carbon is created according to how it is distributed. “Over the last year we have mapped every Royal Mail distribution centre and regional office – there are around 1,500 over the UK – take the specification of the print and work out how much carbon there will be in the mailing based on an average of the UK population,” he says.
In an example, a volume of 100,000 88g items mailed through a distribution hub in West Yorkshire with a 2% return for goneaways will have a CO2e of 536kg. The same campaign via a mailing house in the south east will generate 825kg, an increase of 17%.
The figures have been ratified by an independent third party, says Maskill. It is now planning to go further. Webmart is now planning an update to Enviromail, developed in conjunction with a specialist independent body, as a more sophisticated cradle to cradle approach to cover how both print and mailing may impact the environment.
“We have run estimates and calculations for customers based on the use of regional and local distribution hubs we find that the footprint can be 20-30% down depending on which mailing centre it goes to. We know where each pack is going to, so with the expanded calculator we can the most sustainable way to mail and distribute.”
And at the same time, it is working with customers to mitigate the impact of the print production, where design for recycling can cut 80% of the impact of a printed product.
“Around 80% of a product’s carbon footprint is traceable to the design phase, so we want to work with clients as early as possible in that decision cycle and to ensure that the creative team explores how to design for recycling,” says Maskill.
There is a logo and QR code that customers can use to visit lending page to give a report on the campaign’s impact.
