U.S. Postal Service Strategic 

Sustainability Performance Plan Overview 

July 2010 

 

 
Table of Contents 

Introduction ...................................................................................... 3 

Our sustainability vision.................................................................. 4 

Our sustainability strategy .............................................................. 4 

Summary of goals ............................................................................ 5 

Greenhouse gas.................................................................................................... 5 

Facility energy ....................................................................................................... 6 

Owned-vehicle fuel................................................................................................ 6 

Waste .................................................................................................................... 7 

Materials................................................................................................................ 7 

Water..................................................................................................................... 8 

Employees............................................................................................................. 8 

Suppliers ............................................................................................................... 9 

Customers............................................................................................................. 9 

Peers................................................................................................................... 10 

Keeping track of our progress ...................................................... 11 

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Introduction 

The U.S. Postal Service is committed to being a sustainability leader and building on its 

long history of environmental innovation and social responsibility. With a presence in 

towns and cities across the nation, USPS is especially mindful of the impact that today's 

actions can have on future generations. By working toward the goals outlined in this 

plan, we make the best use of resources, reduce financial costs and benefit our 

employees, customers and the communities we serve. 

Our green practices and successes are widely recognized — recycling and mail-back 

programs, vehicles powered by electricity and alternative fuels, environmentally certified 

mailing and shipping supplies, and more. Recent USPS sustainability leadership efforts 

include these achievements: 

 The first federal agency to have a sustainability officer. 

 The first federal agency to publish a third-party-verified greenhouse gas (GHG) 

emissions inventory and commit to absolute GHG reductions. 

 One of the first federal agencies to issue Global Reporting Initiative-based public 

sustainability performance reports (2008 and 2009). 

 Along with other posts, became the first industry sector to commit to GHG 

reductions at the 2009 United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen. 

 Named “most trusted government agency” for six consecutive years. 

 The first mailing or shipping company to achieve Cradle-to-Cradle certification for 

our packaging envelopes and stamps. 

This plan describes our strategic sustainability framework, including our performance 

goals and implementation initiatives. 

Achieving these sustainability goals will be extremely challenging as we face the most 

significant financial crisis in our history. Mail volume and revenue are rapidly declining, 

while the number of delivery points we serve continues to increase. 

In addition, there are restrictions on closing Post Offices and we are nearing our 

statutory debt limit, which in turn limits our capital investments and increases our longterm debt. 

Because of these challenges, we are focusing our near-term efforts on implementing 

low-cost, high-benefit initiatives that achieve our goals, increase operational efficiencies 

and have a shorter return on investment. A key element of our plan is engaging our 

employees to help us adopt a culture of conservation. This includes creating Lean 

Green teams that will help promote energy- and resource-efficient practices nationwide. 

Despite our significant near-term financial challenges, we are committed to sustainability 

and delivering on our mission of providing affordable, universal mail service. 

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Our sustainability vision 

Our vision is simple — be a sustainability leader. This vision builds on our long history 

of leadership in implementing environmental and socially responsible operations and 

services. 

Our vision of leadership requires that we maintain both an inward focus on culture 

change and an outward focus on championing the adoption of more sustainable 

practices among our customers and stakeholders. 

Build a conservation culture among all employees

We will engage our nearly 600,000 employees in our efforts to reduce both energy use 

and our impact on the environment. And we will take advantage of improved 

measurement systems, advances in renewable energy sources and comprehensive 

employee education to help us meet our goals. 

We will focus first on facility and fleet energy use, and then extend our efficiency 

practices to water and other resources. And we are incorporating new efficiency 

standards into mail processing equipment and facility designs. 

Lead adoption of sustainable business practices 

We will take a comprehensive life-cycle approach that incorporates environmental 

responsibility from creation to disposal of mail pieces. We will expand our already robust 

green supply chain, facility management and IT purchasing practices, and redesign 

networks to provide sound environmental benefits and contribute to cost reductions. 

We will expand efforts to help customers be more sustainable by providing more in-lobby 

recycling containers and expand product mail-back programs for small electronics and 

other materials. We will measure our greenhouse gas emissions to serve as a baseline 

for a long-term strategy to reduce our carbon footprint. 

Our sustainability strategy 

Our sustainability strategy connects the vision of being a sustainability leader with 

traditional enterprise value drivers of cost and efficiency, brand, and revenue 

improvement. 

Our strategy contains 15 sustainability performance goals across 10 focus areas that will 

help us demonstrate progress toward achieving this vision. 

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1 Reduce scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 20% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline). Greenhouse gas Reduce select scope 3 GHG emissions 20% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline).

Deploy “Lean Green Teams” to 100% of USPS districts and network distribution centers by FY 2012 

(FY 2009 baseline). Employees

Reduce contract transportation petroleum fuel use 20% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline).

Suppliers Require suppliers with current contract commitments of over $500,000 to provide sustainability data 

by FY 2015 (FY 2011 baseline).

Include standard USPS sustainability clauses in new contract actions by FY 2015 (FY 2011 baseline).

Offer customers a range of sustainable products and services by FY 2012, including at least two new 

customer offerings (FY 2009 baseline). Customers

Outperform the international postal sector’s average annual carbon management performance score, 

as calculated by the International Post Corporation (IPC). Peers

Focus Area USPS Sustainability Goals

Facility energy Reduce total facility energy use 30% by FY 2015 (FY 2003 baseline).

Owned-vehicle fuel

Reduce owned-vehicle petroleum fuel use 20% by FY 2015 (FY 2005 baseline).

Increase owned-vehicle alternative fuel use 10% annually by FY 2015 (FY 2005 baseline).

Waste Reduce waste to landfill 50% by FY 2015 (FY 2009 baseline).

Materials

Reduce spend on consumables 30% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline).

Increase % of identified environmentally preferable products (EPP) available for purchase on-catalog 

by 50% by FY 2015 (FY 2010 baseline). 

Water Reduce water use 10% by FY 2015 (FY 2007 baseline).

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1 Reduce scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 20% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline). Greenhouse gas Reduce select scope 3 GHG emissions 20% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline).

Deploy “Lean Green Teams” to 100% of USPS districts and network distribution centers by FY 2012 

(FY 2009 baseline). Employees

Reduce contract transportation petroleum fuel use 20% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline).

Suppliers Require suppliers with current contract commitments of over $500,000 to provide sustainability data 

by FY 2015 (FY 2011 baseline).

Include standard USPS sustainability clauses in new contract actions by FY 2015 (FY 2011 baseline).

Offer customers a range of sustainable products and services by FY 2012, including at least two new 

customer offerings (FY 2009 baseline). Customers

Outperform the international postal sector’s average annual carbon management performance score, 

as calculated by the International Post Corporation (IPC). Peers

Focus Area USPS Sustainability Goals

Facility energy Reduce total facility energy use 30% by FY 2015 (FY 2003 baseline).

Owned-vehicle fuel

Reduce owned-vehicle petroleum fuel use 20% by FY 2015 (FY 2005 baseline).

Increase owned-vehicle alternative fuel use 10% annually by FY 2015 (FY 2005 baseline).

Waste Reduce waste to landfill 50% by FY 2015 (FY 2009 baseline).

Materials

Reduce spend on consumables 30% by FY 2020 (FY 2008 baseline).

Increase % of identified environmentally preferable products (EPP) available for purchase on-catalog 

by 50% by FY 2015 (FY 2010 baseline). 

Water Reduce water use 10% by FY 2015 (FY 2007 baseline).

All of these goals contribute to USPS scope 1, 2 and select scope 3 GHG emission 

reduction goals, and are described below. 

Summary of goals 

These goals will help us integrate sustainability with performance management systems, 

engage employees to implement low- and no-cost initiatives, optimize our network and 

processes, partner with our suppliers and engage our customers with new green 

products and services, and communicate our progress to key stakeholders. 

Greenhouse gas 

Our goal is to reduce scope 1, 2 and select scope 3 GHG emissions 20 percent by FY 

2020. Each year, we will measure, third-party verify, publically report and benchmark 

these emissions. We also want to outperform the international postal sector’s average 

annual carbon management performance (CMP) score. 

With 33,000 facilities and the largest civilian fleet in the nation, our efforts can make a 

positive impact on the environment. That's why we're working to reduce direct 

emissions from our facilities and postal-owned vehicles, and indirect emissions from 

electricity use at our facilities. 

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We also are committed to reducing GHG emissions from USPS contracted mail 

transport, employee business travel and commuting, transmission and distribution losses 

for electricity and contract waste disposal. 

In 2009, we became the first federal agency to publish a third-party-verified GHG 

emissions inventory. In 2010, we were able to demonstrate a 200,000 metric tons 

carbon equivalent scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions reduction. 

When it comes to reducing emissions that are responsible for climate change, we are 

taking a leadership role in efforts to "green the government." 

Facility energy 

USPS is taking a total network energy efficiency approach. Our goal is to reduce total 

facility energy use as well as facility energy intensity 30 percent by FY 2015, and we're 

on track to meet that goal. As of FY 2009, we have reduced facility energy use by nearly 

24 percent. From advanced metering and energy management systems to focusing on 

HVAC repair to informing employees through videos about good energy conservation 

practices, our actions have shown positive results. 

USPS has facilities throughout the country, and has a longstanding commitment to 

operate them with the lowest possible energy cost and impact to the environment. 

Guided by an established energy management policy, the Postal Service regularly acts 

to reduce energy, water and waste. 

The focus of our efforts over the next few years will be to reduce facility electricity 

purchases from the grid. Additional initiatives include energy audits, consolidating 

facilities to minimize overall inventory consumption and operating facilities in a way that 

follows high-performance sustainable building and LEED-EBOM (Leadership in Energy 

and Environmental Design-Existing Building: Operations and Maintenance) principles 

and guidance, where cost-effective. 

It should be noted that two broad strategies outside the immediate scope of energy and 

sustainability have a significant influence on our energy reduction efforts. These are 

efforts to consolidate underutilized facilities across our network and the use of 

automation to improve our network operational efficiencies. 

Additionally, USPS pursues increased use of renewable energy through projects that 

both reduce the use of fossil fuels and have a favorable return on investment. 

Owned-vehicle fuel 

Our goals here are straightforward — reduce petroleum fuel use 20 percent by FY 2015 

and increase alternative fuel use 10 percent annually over the next five years. 

The Postal Service owns and operates more than 217,000 vehicles. In FY 2009, our 

fleet used about 147 million gallons of gasoline equivalent (GGE), including 145 million 

GGE of petroleum fuel and 2 million GGE of non-petroleum fuel. This equates to about 

16 percent of the Postal Service’s total energy use. 

We recognize the environmental and financial benefits from reducing our fleet’s 

petroleum fuel use and dependency. We're committed to employing a range of 

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strategies to achieve that, and to identifying and using non-petroleum fuel alternatives 

that are cost-effective. 

Over the past few years, USPS has been able to reduce a small portion of its petroleum 

fuel use through several initiatives, such as optimizing carrier routes and reducing the 

number of owned vehicles in our fleet. But we also face unique challenges in meeting 

our goals for FY 2015. Although mail volume is decreasing, the number of homes and 

businesses we serve continues to increase, resulting in our delivery vehicles using more 

fuel. 

Our proposed initiative with the largest fuel reduction potential is to reduce delivery days 

from six to five to better match declining mail volumes. Congressional approval is 

needed for this initiative to be implemented. We will continue our focus on reducing 

average fuel costs and implementing low- and no-cost projects to reduce total petroleum 

use, such as having drivers eliminate idling and deviations from routes, and evaluating 

technologies to retrofit the engines of our familiar long-life vehicle delivery vans to 

reduce fuel. 

In addition, we'll keep improving our performance when it comes to alternative fuels. 

From FY 2005 to FY 2009, the Postal Service's use of alternative fuels increased 114 

percent. Among many initiatives, we're working with the Department of Energy on 

electric vehicle prototypes, biodiesel tractors and cargo vans, and fuel economy 

reporting for fuel cell vehicles. 

 

Waste 

USPS generates more than 400,000 tons of solid waste every year. Reducing waste 

sent to landfills is good both for the environment and for our finances, since much of the 

material we send to landfills has a recycling value. And, we help lower our GHG 

emissions related to USPS operations. 

We are working to reduce waste to landfill 50 percent by FY 2015, with a goal of 

achieving a zero-waste footprint. 

USPS is on track to achieve this goal. In FY 2009, USPS generated a total of 424,000 

metric tons of municipal solid waste, diverted approximately 50 percent and sent the 

remaining 209,000 metric tons of solid waste to landfills. To achieve our FY 2015 goal, 

we will need to continue to decrease solid waste to landfills by 8 percent per year. 

A big part of creating a culture of conservation at the Postal Service is fostering a zero 

waste ethic — we encourage employees to reduce, reuse and recycle. Ongoing waste 

reduction initiatives include eliminating paper personnel files, expanding lobby mail 

recycling, using recyclable mail bags and fiberboard managed mail trays, and extending 

use of vehicle batteries. Our future plans include offering customers more ways to mail 

and ship green and expanding the volume and types of commodities that are recycled at 

our facilities. 

Materials 

We buy sustainable materials, and where possible, reduce the number of materials — or 

consumables — we buy, to reduce our overall footprint. Our goal is to reduce spending 

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on consumables 30 percent by FY 2020 using a FY 2008 baseline. We also will work to 

increase the percentage of environmentally preferable products (EPP) available for 

purchase from our national catalogs by 50 percent by FY 2015 using a FY 2010 

baseline. 

The Postal Service defines consumables as office, custodial and maintenance supplies 

used in USPS offices or facilities. USPS annual consumable spending increased from 

FY 2005 to FY 2007, but has decreased each year since. We had a 16 percent 

reduction in FY 2009. 

Environmentally preferable products are identified in the USPS online catalog 

purchasing system. They are listed by whether a product is chemical free, bio-based, 

recycled content, eco-labeled, renewable resource, energy efficient or water efficient. 

USPS employees responsible for purchases are encouraged to buy EPP products when 

price and quality are the same as a non EPP product. 

USPS first developed a "buy green" policy more than a dozen years ago. A more 

comprehensive green purchasing plan was introduced in 2008. It outlines a long-term, 

proactive approach to preventing pollution, minimizing waste and promoting green 

management. 

Water 

The Postal Service's longstanding water conservation objective continues to be using 

the minimum amount of water necessary to support our delivery service obligation and 

operations. We plan to reduce water use 10 percent by FY 2015. 

USPS requires relatively small volumes of water to operate. Our water consumption is 

primarily limited to restrooms, cooling towers that reduce energy use at our larger 

processing facilities and controlled water use at a small number of vehicle maintenance 

facilities. 

USPS has had policies and procedures for two decades to meet all federal storm water 

and other applicable water-related requirements, and to standardize sound water 

management practices. 

Our water use in recent years has been relatively flat, about 5.5 million gallons annually, 

but we're working to fine-tune our tracking of water use to identify additional water 

conservation opportunities. And as USPS consolidates underused facilities and 

streamlines processing operations, we will have fewer facilities in active use, and 

therefore, less water consumed. 

Employees 

USPS encourages employees to work greener and take everyday conservation steps at 

home as well. Our employees can make a positive impact on the communities in which 

they live and work, and that includes sustainability. The overall goal is to create a 

conservation culture at the Postal Service. 

To enable employees to make sound sustainability decisions, we'll deploy Lean Green 

teams to 100 percent of USPS districts and network distribution centers in the next two 

years. These teams are part of the Lean Green Initiative, a program that focuses on 

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broad-based employee education and engagement, allowing employees to take steps 

individually and collectively to reduce energy and preserve resources. The teams will 

help USPS achieve corporate and facility goals of improved sustainability performance. 

In April 2009, locations that piloted the Lean Green Initiative generated an average 

$500,000 in annual savings across the five areas of focus — facility energy, ownedvehicle fuel, waste, materials and water. Deployment to districts is now under way. The 

teams will encourage low-cost, or no-cost, ways to make the Postal Service even more 

sustainable by improving use of resources and minimizing impact on the environment. 

Suppliers 

The Postal Service has identified three supplier-focused sustainability goals to drive the 

continued expansion of sustainability throughout the extended supply chain supporting 

USPS. These goals are to reduce contract transportation petroleum fuel use 20 percent 

by FY 2020, require suppliers with current contract commitments of more than $500,000 

to provide sustainability data and include standard USPS sustainability clauses in new 

contracts. 

Nearly 79 percent of the Postal Service’s petroleum fuel use and 60 percent of its total 

energy use is associated with contract transportation providers. In FY 2009, USPS 

suppliers consumed approximately 569 million GGE of petroleum fuel at a cost of more 

than $1 billion. Contract transportation is a significant portion of our organization’s total 

GHG emissions (scope 1, 2, and select scope 3), accounting for 36 percent of our total 

GHG footprint of 14.7 MMT CO2-e in FY 2008. 

In FY 2009, contract transportation fuel use decreased by nearly 2 percent compared to 

the previous year. USPS must reduce annual fuel use by another 18 percent over the 

next 10 years to meet its FY 2020 reduction goal. We currently are implementing a 

number of initiatives to meet this goal, including building and network consolidations and 

replacement of private vehicles on rural routes along with encouraging suppliers to use 

more efficient vehicles. However, USPS may not meet this goal without identifying 

additional initiatives in partnership with the supplier community. 

The Postal Service is committed to help external stakeholders adopt and improve their 

sustainability business practices. Sustainability data creates transparency and visibility 

into what sustainable products USPS is purchasing from its suppliers, along with visibility 

of the sustainable practices suppliers are implementing in their supply chains. We will 

engage suppliers and ultimately encourage improved supplier sustainability 

performance. 

Customers 

Customers want their products to be environmentally and socially responsible, and the 

Postal Service delivers on that expectation, providing eco-friendly products and services 

as well as expanded access. We will continue to offer customers a range of 

sustainability products and services, introducing new greener postal solutions in the 

years to come. 

We are creating a more customer-friendly usps.com and new mobile applications that 

offer immediate access to postal information and services. We design mailing and 

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shipping services that are environmentally responsible and enable our customers to 

green their shipping and mailing operations. 

Examples of existing USPS services that are more sustainable include online services 

such as Click-N-Ship, change of address and Post Office Box management. Our carrier 

pickup services enable our customers to skip the trip to the Post Office by having 

packages picked up at their homes or businesses, eliminating the need to use their own 

vehicle and gas. 

Customers can view our annual GHG and sustainability performance reports online at 

usps.com/green. There's also a calculator that lets customers see their GHG emissions 

savings by ordering postal products online, estimate their individual lifestyle carbon 

footprint and track pledges to reduce it. 

We enable our customers to mail and ship it green — across country or around the 

world. 

Peers 

Given our size and unique position as the only organization that provides mail service to 

every address in America, it's challenging to identify appropriate peers for benchmarking 

our sustainability performance. 

Based on employee headcount, Wal-Mart is among the Postal Service’s closest 

corporate peers, while customers typically view UPS and FedEx as our primary mailing 

industry peers. Although USPS is also often compared to other federal government 

agencies, our organization is different because we charge customers for our products 

and services and do not receive tax dollars to fund our operations. Therefore, gauging 

sustainability performance against any one group of industry or governmental peers is 

difficult. 

However, in 2008, USPS joined the International Post Corporation (IPC) and 16 other 

member postal organizations to create and launch the postal sector Environmental 

Measurement and Monitoring System (EMMS), a transparent, scientific, sector-specific 

carbon measurement and monitoring system developed for the postal industry in 

collaboration with sustainability experts at IPC member postal operators. The IPC is a 

cooperative association of 24 member postal operators in Europe, North America and 

the Asia-Pacific region, which is dedicated to improving service quality, promoting 

cooperation among posts and providing information about postal and related markets. 

The EMMS serves as a common framework for members to measure and benchmark 

their carbon management proficiency across 10 areas –– principles and standards, 

policies and procedures, management, strategies, targets, activities and programs, 

employee engagement, measurement and verification, disclosure and reporting, and 

value chain management. 

Our primary goal is to outperform the annual IPC EMMS carbon management 

proficiency (CMP) sector-wide average score from the preceding calendar year. An 

additional goal is to improve our CMP goal each calendar year. 

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Keeping track of our progress 

The Postal Service is committed to achieving the goals outlined in this plan. We will 

report each year on our progress through a variety of public forums, including the USPS 

Sustainability Annual Report. This report, as well as the latest news and information 

about USPS green activities, is posted at usps.com/green. 

We also will continue to report our third-party-verified GHG emissions inventory through 

The Climate Registry and the IPC EMMS. 

By achieving our goals, the Postal Service continues to meet the needs of the present 

without compromising the future, and attains its vision of being a sustainability leader. 

To read USPS’s detailed FY 2010 Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, visit 

http://www.usps.com/green/sspp/2010/sspp_2010.pdf 

 

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