Focus magazines use climate-neutral GoGreen shipping

With immediate effect, Focus, Focus-Money and Focus-Schule will send their magazines to subscribers using climate-neutral shipping. "We are delighted that Focus Magazin Verlag GmbH is the first magazine publishing company to use our GoGreen shipping service and is making an active contribution to climate protection," says Jürgen Gerdes, a member of Deutsche Post DHL's Board of Management.

Focus will also use the carbon-neutral shipping service for customer correspondence, such as service letters and invoices. "We would like to take on the responsibility of minimizing the impact that our business is having on the environment. In doing so, we are taking an important step into the future," explains Horst Jarkovsky, managing director of Focus Magazin Verlag.

It is anticipated that the publisher will use the GoGreen service to ship 20 million items per year. This means Focus publishing company will offset a total of around 4,200 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

In July 2008, Deutsche Post DHL became the first postal service provider in Germany to introduce a climate-neutral shipping service for letters, advertising mailshots and press products. This means that the volume of environmentally harmful CO2 generated by these shipments is offset. These emissions are calculated down to the last gram using a certified system, and are offset via emission certificates from global climate protection projects.

Deutsche Post DHL is funding, amongst other things, a hydropower plant in Brazil, a wind park in China and a biomass power plant in India that meets what is currently the highest toughest protection standard, the CER Gold Standard. At the end of a fiscal year, GoGreen customers receive a certificate stating the amount of CO2 that has been offset for their GoGreen shipments.

Group-wide climate protection goals

Deutsche Post DHL not only helps its customers to reduce CO2 emissions. With its GoGreen climate protection program, the logistics service provider is the first company in the industry to set itself ambitious environmental protection goals.

The Group aims to increase CO2 efficiency of both its own business activities and those of its subcontractors by 30% by the year 2020. In other words, the emissions generated by every letter sent, by every ton transported and by every square meter of area used are to be reduced by almost one-third - which also applies to Deutsche Post Global Mail's international mail business. The starting point for the calculations is the year 2007.

The Group's first step will be to improve CO2 efficiency of its own activities by 10% by the year 2012. To get there, it will focus on optimising its aircraft and vehicle fleet, enhancing energy efficiency, developing innovative technologies, encouraging staff to demonstrate more climate awareness, and involving customers and subcontractors in the process.