UPS, FedEx Expand Reports of Carbon Emission Sources
By Dan Leone, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the July 6 print edition of Transport Topics.
Parcel carriers UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp. are broadening their accounting of greenhouse gas emissions, targeting sources beyond their own direct emissions.
In late June, UPS touted its public disclosure of both direct and indirect carbon dioxide emissions in the first change to the company鈥檚 CO2 accounting policy since UPS began tabulating these emissions in 2002.
A company spokeswoman cited UPS鈥 entry into different transportation segments, such as freight forwarding, as a motivating factor for more detailed carbon accounting.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got 45 companies and we鈥檙e in a lot of different businesses鈥 compared with 2002, when 鈥渨e were much more small-package oriented, said Lynnette McIntire, a UPS spokeswoman on the company鈥檚 sustainability committee.
Besides the 7.5 million metric tons of CO2 put out by UPS鈥 ground and air delivery operations, the company said it indirectly generated 728,000 metric tons of CO2 through electricity generation.
The figures were published by the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project, which distributes reports on the carbon disclosure practices of the companies that make large stock indexes, such as the Standard & Poor鈥檚 500.
The CDP report tracks emissions in three separate categories identified by an international carbon ac-counting standards group, The听 Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative.
鈥淪cope 1鈥 emissions include those that are produced as a direct result of a company鈥檚 day-to-day business. For transporters, scope 1 emissions include fuel burned by airplanes, trains and trucks.
Conversely, 鈥渟cope 2鈥 emissions are indirect emissions tied to power generation. 鈥淪cope 3鈥 covers all other indirect emissions, including purchased transportation costs such as trucking services.
UPS has not yet published its scope 3 emissions data, but McIntire said that an accounting of those emissions is under way.
FedEx is likewise tracking its direct CO2 emissions. Moreover, the company also has said that 鈥渨e plan to include [scope 2] data in our 2009 report.鈥
Like UPS, FedEx is collecting data on its scope 3 emissions, but it has not yet said whether it will include 鈥渁ll of our purchased transportation emissions in future reports.鈥
In a 2008 report that contains FedEx鈥檚 latest accounting of its CO2 emissions, the company said that it 鈥渆mits 39.5 metric tons of aircraft and vehicle CO2 emissions per $100,000 in revenue.鈥
FedEx had about $35.5 billion in revenue in its 2008 fiscal year, which ended May 31.
UPS, Atlanta, and FedEx, Memphis, Tenn., rank No. 1 and No. 2 respectively on the Transport Topics 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.