The journey so far

Responsible consumption & production

Sustainability > Responsible Consumption & Production > The journey so far

Overview

Our focus on sustainable consumption and production has been on waste management, restoring nature and sustainable procurement. This section details how we delivered on this SDG in 2022.

Circular Economy

Properties

With over two million square feet of property within our portfolio, there are many opportunities
to think creatively about its use to ensure we are getting the best value for us and our communities. Over the course of 2022, two of our vacant properties in Mayo and Kildare were offered to the Housing Association, initially under the Circular Eonomy/Housing for All initiatives, to help repurpose and revitalise main street and town centre locations, whilst also providing
residential accommodation in the midst of the accommodation crisis.

Reusable products/recycled packaging

We strive to ensure that our products are reusable, recyclable or compostable and have been making progress in sustainable packaging innovation. Our pre-paid gifting boxes are made from 93% recycled material and our pre-paid packaging bags are made from 40% recycled materials and are certified as 100% recyclable.

Pricing

We are incentivising our e-commerce business customers, who make up the vast majority of our
parcel deliveries, to use less packing material when preparing their goods for postage, by utilising volumetric pricing. They can avail of improved pricing for parcels that are lighter and have smaller dimensions. This means that households that receive parcels can reduce the volume of packaging material that requires recycling.

Waste

Recycling Rates

In 2022 we reduced our total waste by 38% and our general waste by 24% compared to 2021. Due to this overall reduction in waste, our recycling rate decreased from 80% in 2021 to 76% in 2022. Two initiatives contributed to this reduction:
• Less paper used on sites due to the completion of our laptop rollout and increased use of double sided printing as a default setting.
• Significant reduction in cardboard waste.

Packaging Waste

In 2022, we achieved a further reduction of packaging waste by 7% due to reduced volumes of envelopes and headed paper purchased for our offices. Following engagement with Repak, we will be updating the scope of our metric in 2023 to include the packaging used in the shipping of the goods from our business customers to our distribution centres, for example shrink wrap.

Biodigester

In 2022 we collaborated with several suppliers to install a biodigester at our Dublin Mail Centre (DMC). This converts food waste into a dry, safe, and usable by-product that deals with waste at source, closing the waste loop, and helping us to implement circularity. This valuable by-product has been used at our DMC site to replenish soil with carbon, ammonia and phosphorus. Our biodigester has also reduced emissions associated with the transportation and disposal of food waste off-site for onward processing. This has avoided over 300kg of general waste per month which equates to approximately 76 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

Water footprint

This year, we continued to monitor our water usage with our 34 smart water meters, which enables us to quickly detect and resolve leaks as part of our objective to reduce annual water usage by 5% per annum. We also continued to use our vehicle steam washing system to eliminate the use of chemicals and reduce waste water. These two initiatives reduced water usage by over 14,800m3 in 2022 compared to 2021.

Biodiversity

An Post’s Biodiversity Strategy

As part of delivering on our biodiversity strategy, we conducted a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature-related impacts and dependencies as well the associated risks and opportunities for the business. This assessment reviewed a wide range of data including site locations, employee numbers, fleet composition and property and landscape maintenance schedules, to unearth potential recommendations and assist the ongoing development of our biodiversity strategy. To find out more about our strategy and the enhancements we have made to our property portfolio click here

An Post Honey Bees

We have 80,000 to 120,000 dark Irish honeybees on the roof of the GPO in Dublin. Due to the possibility that our wild bee population is being put under stress as they are all competing for the same food sources, we made a change in 2022 and moved our GPO bees to an “out apiary” in north County Dublin where they are happily foraging among the hedgerows. We are also focussing our support on pollinators more in need of help in our biodiversity strategy, as our wild bees and pollinators (moths, wasps, flies, hoverflies, butterflies) all need food, shelter and safety to preserve the natural capital of Ireland.

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