Green and socially-responsible

This summer's fires and floods highlighted (if there were still any need) that climate change is not some abstract issue! The 6th IPCC report[1] released in August scientifically established the influence of humans on the climate system. The report, which shows our society's addiction to carbon, should incite everyone to take action to combat climate change. This is the raison d'être of the 3rd #GreenPostalDay on 17 September. Postal services around the world are reasserting their commitment and reinforcing their international cooperation to combat global warming at a time when the development of e-commerce is increasing the flow of goods.

To remain useful to our customers, and to society as a whole, we must provide them with a green and socially-responsible postal service. The 2021 #GreenPostalDay will therefore focus on issues such as the carbon footprint, electric vehicle fleets and renewable energy consumption. As a leader in carbon-free logistics, La Poste has a major role to play in this area, since it shows the way and freely shares its best practices. La Poste's service offers have been carbon neutral since 2012. Although we have achieved carbon neutrality, we are continuing to work to reduce our emissions on a daily basis, to share our experience and encourage other players to join us in helping to build the carbon-neutral France of 2050.

We offset our emissions, but our goal is to move towards zero-carbon deliveries, and this is the reason for our partnership with the WWF. This partnership with a non-governmental organisation – acknowledged for its ecological commitment – is both a necessity and a clear statement of the objectives we have set.?By prioritising soft modes of transport, operating one of the largest electric-vehicle fleets in the world and offsetting residual emissions, we have managed to make our business completely carbon neutral. Now, the goal is to establish ourselves as the leader in responsible deliveries in France and Europe by ensuring – as of 2025 – 100% clean deliveries in 225 cities across the continent, thanks to Geopost. At the same time, we have switched the power supplies in all our buildings over to electricity produced through renewable sources.

Being a good corporate citizen means putting ecology at the heart of our day-to-day actions and strategy. With this in mind, La Banque Postale has established itself a leader in sustainable finance and is the first financial institution to join the 1.5°C temperature trajectory of the Paris Agreement. Its asset management subsidiary, LBPAM, is acknowledged as the first general asset manager to offer 100% Socially-Responsible Investments. Our bank recently signed the "Finance for Biodiversity Pledge", thereby committing itself to developing actions in favour of biodiversity: launch of a range of impact-investment funds, support for projects in favour of biodiversity through crowd-funding and raising awareness among young people about the need to protect biodiversity.

Our green and socially-responsible approach, which has its roots in our history and identity, has been widely acknowledged – La Poste was awarded the highest CSR rating by Vigeo-Eiris in 2020 and 2021. Since it has been clearly demonstrated that human activity has an influence on the climate, we now need to ensure that human activity has a positive effect on the climate. Postal workers have decided to fight for this by taking action on a daily basis for a more responsible world. This is reflected in our target of achieving zero net emissions by 2030, for every product and service we design in France and around the world.

[1] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change