Get Early Access to EasyPost's Carbon Offset API on Earth Day!

April 20, 2022

by Travis Edwards

A scale showing the different types of energy sources

This year EasyPost has a very exciting way to participate in Earth Day. We are opening up early access to our Carbon Offset API! The Carbon Offset API will allow customers to accurately calculate the total carbon emissions from parcel deliveries and purchase carbon offsets to reduce their carbon footprint. And all of this will be made available through an API. In other words, a one-time integration with our API will empower customers to go fully carbon-neutral or offer carbon-neutral shipping to their customers.

Use the form here to guarantee your early access.

EasyPost's philosophy on shipping and sustainability

EasyPost lives by the philosophy that shipping a package should be easy. All of our customers' time not spent integrating new carriers, dealing with customer support calls during outages, or interpreting confusing API documentation is better spent on selling their core products. A shipping API should save you time, money, and stress.

So when we learned about many of our customers’ environmental focus and increasingly ambitious sustainability targets, we wanted to make reducing their carbon footprint from shipping easy too. So that’s what we’re doing. Our Carbon Offset API will allow customers to offset carbon emission from parcel delivery in minutes.

Breaking down the carbon emissions of packaging and parcel delivery

Similar to other growing industries, as the ecommerce space continues to grow significantly year over year, more attention is paid to its environmental impact. And as this trend becomes increasingly important, we should look to understand some of the main factors contributing to carbon emissions from the shipping process. We understand there are emissions that happen in every step of the supply chain lifecycle of manufacturing a product to getting the product in your customers’ hands. But as a shipping API provider, we’re focused on the two areas where our customers have more control and ability to take action: packaging and parcel delivery.

Every shipment is different, and there are a plethora of factors that contribute to carbon emissions from parcel delivery. For this reason, let's isolate the biggest contributors to carbon emissions: packaging and transportation.

Packaging emission breakdown

When it comes to packaging, the key factors are the weight of the shipment and the carbon density of the materials used for packaging. Better fitting packages to your products to lower weight, reducing total packaging materials, and using less carbon-intensive packaging materials are great strategies to lower total carbon emissions. For example, biodegradable polystyrene packaging peanuts are 23% less carbon-intensive than standard polystyrene packaging peanuts.

Parcel delivery emission breakdown

For the transportation component, carbon emissions are primarily correlated to the vehicle fuel efficiency and total miles traveled. As a result, shippers are looking to use ground transportation for better fuel efficiency and optimize delivery routes to lower the total distance traveled. And this can have tremendous impacts. Ground transportation emits an estimated 20% of air cargo emissions over the same distance. And soon, with our Carbon Offset API, you will be able to purchase carbon offsets to directly offset carbon emissions from parcel delivery on every shipment.

Join the movement

The green movement is hitting the ecommerce industry from all angles. Starting with the regulatory landscape: the U.S. has set ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions by 50% from 2005 levels and go fully carbon neutral by 2050.

And we're seeing carriers begin to take action too. For example, USPS has commitments to reduce parcel-owned emission sources such as vehicle and facility emissions and indirect emission sources such as electricity and steam emissions by 25% by 2025. In addition, FedEx has impressively committed itself to be fully carbon neutral by 2040. Further, UPS and DHL now offer a carbon-neutral shipping program.

We're seeing major companies from various industries joining the movement as well, with major brand names pledging to go carbon neutral by 2040 or earlier. In addition to FedEx, the likes of Google, Amazon, Best Buy, Apple, JetBlue and more have pledged to achieve this goal.

And this trend crystalizes when looking at the consumer sentiment toward eco-friendly brands and shipping. Deloitte found that 23% of consumers would be willing to switch brands if the brand was aligned with their environmental philosophy. Further, a recent survey found more than 50% of consumers would be willing to pay 10% more for eco-friendly shipping and packaging. This means customers are not only more likely to purchase from eco-friendly brands, but they're also willing to pay more for it too.

Get started on your journey with EasyPost

Tackling this problem feels daunting for many companies. Many don't know where to begin and the potential costs. EasyPost makes this easy for you with the Carbon Offset API. Take it step-by-step by using all of the features available from the API.

Easily calculate the carbon emissions from parcel delivery and purchase carbon offsets for each of your shipments directly through EasyPost’s API. EasyPost partners with the accredited carbon removal developers that use the latest negative emission technology. You can elect to show eco-friendly shipping options to your customers and let them choose, or automatically purchase the carbon offsets for each order and establish yourself as an eco-friendly brand. Enjoy the benefits of being an eco-friendly brand with EasyPost’s Carbon Offset API today!

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