Webmart has launched Enviromail as a means to account for the carbon footprint created by delivery of a mail campaign, from factory to a consumer’s letterbox.
The project has been underway for 15 months, having started before the first lockdown. It delivered the first campaign last week, with twice the amount of the carbon generated in the distribution to be offset through projects in the developing world and the UK.
“We started this at a pre furlough point,” says managing director Richard Boon, who took on the top role himself in March last year. “When the lockdown started, we we decided to build some future focused positive stuff. Enviromail is one result.”
Webmart worked with CarbonQuota to understand the impacts of the vehicles used to move mail packs around the country to distribution points and to the downstream delivery network. At the same time, Webmart can also offer Enviromail for door drops.
Webmart has already been able to calculate the carbon impact of print production and the materials used, offsetting this for customers when required. Others can do the same sort of calculation, but this is the first to cover the distribution.
And it has been welcomed eagerly, says Boon. “There is information out there and available, but nobody has created a tried and tested way to join up the A, B and C,” says Boon. “We can even include the impact of data processing.”
It means that Webmart is confident that it is the first to be able to account for and balance the carbon footprint of a campaign. And that it has the timing right.
“Sustainability is starting to appear in the conversations we have now. It is coming at the right time,” he adds. “Quite a few are looking at it. We have a long way to go as an industry to understand what clients want. This is a good way for clients to be climate positive with their marketing.”
As well as working with CarbonQuota to understand the external impacts, Webmart has had to ensure that its own house is in order and that its own data could be validated. The technology needed to be set up so that the calculation of the impact would incur no additional costs to either the company nor the client. And then the projects to support had to be selected. These include renewable energy projects in India, clean cookstoves in Rwanda, reforestation in Nicaragua as well as Webmart’s own rewinding project that is underway in Scotland.
The company’s staff were consulted on which projects should be supported, coming up with those in the developing world where, without mitigation, the worst effects of climate change will be felt.
There is also a logo created to be applied to a campaign with a link for a consumer to discover more about offsetting and also to be able to find out more about the offsetting projects that are supported in this way.
