Committed to Sustainability
Carbon Neutral
Carbon Neureal
At Urgent Couriers we live and breathe sustainability and have done for 15+ Years
At Urgent Couriers, we live and breathe sustainability and have done so since the late 1990s. We use the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainability to guide our business decisions to ensure we don’t compromise the success of future generations with our actions today.
Within Urgent Couriers, sustainability is defined as a commitment to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve their quality of life. In short, Urgent Couriers focuses on People, Planet, and Profits. Our vision is to establish a company that:
- Trains and rewards all contractors and employees with the fairest and highest remuneration within the industry.
- Provides consistent, efficient, and reliable services for all clients.
- Procures products and services from efficient and environmentally friendly suppliers and pays them in a timely manner.
- Leads the New Zealand courier industry in its impacts on the natural environment by changing to Low Emission Vehicles (LEVs) and using smart technology to improve efficiency.
- Develops its team’s understanding of their impact on the community.
- Maintains a level of company profitability that allows shareholders to invest in growth to provide opportunities for employees.
- Utilises e-commerce to future-proof Urgent Couriers and assist with building strategic partnerships in emerging areas of business.
- People are at the heart of the business, and Urgent Couriers is focused on helping its staff and contractors achieve a good standard of living in a positive work environment.
Urgent Couriers
We are NZ's first Carbon Neutral courier service.
Our main impact is the emissions from our vehicle fleet. We accept this responsibility and were the first transport company in New Zealand to become carbon neutral.
You may be wondering how a company whose operations involve burning fossil fuels can possibly claim to be carbon neutral. We take the following steps every year to achieve certification in Toitu carboNZero Cert TM programme.
Reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible by:
- Ensuring our contractors use low-emission vehicles – now over 75% of the fleet.
- Using smart GPS technology to improve fleet efficiency.
- Developing and implementing an emissions reduction plan.
- Using cycle couriers as much as possible.
- We are measuring our emissions and having them audited by an independent auditor.
- Purchasing carbon credits to offset all remaining unavoidable emissions.
Our most recent endeavours include implementing e-bikes in the Auckland CBD to help remove traffic from the city centre. This was supported by Auckland Council by providing parking and charging stations at its central Auckland offices. Our e-bikes save time and about 40 to 50 tonnes of carbon a year by replacing five vehicles with special electric cargo bikes in the central city.
We’ve also just had our heavy transport linehaul company certified carbon neutral by Toitu making it the first Carbon Neutral heavy transport operator in New Zealand.
Urgent Couriers
We pay our couriers a living wage
By taking a responsible approach to pricing, Urgent Couriers ensures the company’s financial profitability and the economic viability of its drivers. A guiding principle of Urgent Couriers’ since its inception is to safeguard its couriers are viable business people in their own right.
We’re the only company to report on our courier sustainability daily to ensure our drivers make a living wage. We survey our drivers to make sure that they are enjoying their work. In our last survey, we scored 8.7 out of 10 on driver happiness.
We are committed to providing our clients with the most consistent, reliable service as part of an overall value plan. Only by rewarding our couriers fairly can we ensure they provide an excellent service.
Urgent Couriers
Leading by example
- We incorporated sustainable development measures into our staff’s individual performance criteria. We have a broad range of services with a range of slower speeds increasing our couriers’ capacity to carry more deliveries per kilometre and hence make more money.
Partnerships
We work with the following partners to help with our sustainability initiatives:
- We are led by Steve Bonnici our Managing Director
- Toitu to achieve certification in the Toitu carboNZero Cert TM programme
- EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority): have supported us with the e-bikes and subsidised some of the cost of the e-bikes
- We feature in their latest Gen Less campaign with the ebikes, running on TV, online and on social media.
- We have full support from our Advisory Board
- We are members of the Sustainable Business Network
- Our management team are also heavily involved in our sustainability efforts
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