Supporting Royal Mail Group's journey to net zero

Twenty years ago, Royal Mail Group, a British multinational postal service and courier company, enlisted Clarity to manage their travel, accommodation, and venue bookings.

Our partnership has focused on ensuring traveller safety and satisfaction while continuously seeking sustainable travel options, process efficiencies, and cost savings. Royal Mail Group (RMG) aims to enhance travel management sustainability, prioritise traveller wellbeing, reduce CO2emissions, and achieve significant process efficiencies and savings, with goals to reduce indirect value chain emissions (Scope 3) by 25% by 2030 and reach net zero overall emissions by 2040.

Solution

Clarity’s Account Manager works closely with RMG’s Procurement Manager to support their net zero goal by 2040. We reviewed their travel programme to promote greener methods, including electric vehicle charging points, sustainable hotels, and car club integration.

To support Scope 3 reduction, we implemented tools for better calculation and greener decision-making, and reduced meeting frequency to minimise travel. The process began with a discovery phase to align engagement between RMG, Clarity, and key suppliers. Clarity introduced RMG to The Rail Delivery Group for advanced measurement techniques, and collaborated with Enterprise Rent-a-Car on the Green Car Club and ‘Road to Rail’ campaign.

Clarity’s Sustainability Manager captured necessary B2B usage data from hotels to guide future development and engaged with the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance to enhance understanding of sustainability metrics. We encouraged key providers to adopt these measures to improve their sustainable offerings.

RMG and Clarity launched several campaigns aligned with their sustainability goals:

Campaign 1 (January 2022): Increase eTicket usage from 4% to 65% by 2023 to reduce non-recyclable printed tickets.

Campaign 2 (April 2022): Switch from road to rail when travelling to and from meetings with the benefit of increased traveller wellbeing, improved end user experience and reduced CO2 emissions by 518CO2e to 3,550CO2e in 12 months.

Campaign 3 (October 2023): Increase rail booking lead time to 8+ days, reducing costs and enhancing sustainability. This included negotiating a deal for the Caledonian Sleeper train for journeys between London and Scotland to make the most of their travellers’ downtime.

Clarity’s Account Manager and RMG’s Procurement Manager established a communication strategy to educate stakeholders and encourage the right behaviours, ensuring Executive Assistants’ (EAs) support through weekly updates. As new processes were introduced, we reviewed booking data to identify patterns and target travellers for increased engagement and behaviour change.

Results

Collaborating with Clarity’s Head of Customer Insight and Account Manager, RMG updated their travel and expense policy to emphasise diversity and sustainability.

Campaign 1: eTicket usage rose from 4% to 52% within eight weeks, with onsite printed tickets reduced to 0%, concluding with 62% eTickets.

Campaign 2: CO2 emissions were reduced from 4,068tCO2 to 3,717tCO2.

Campaign 3: Advance rail bookings increased from 32% to 37%, saving £4,500.

"Engagement with key stakeholders was crucial for the success of the new programme. Post-pandemic, our travellers were uncertain about booking travel and concerned about safety, desiring home comforts during frequent or extended stays. Lindsay Cook collaborated with me and Chris Piggin to create campaigns addressing these challenges. She took our ideas and turned them into viable, trackable reality that not only delivered savings to Royal Mail Group, but it also provided a platform on which to build trust and confidence in our travellers."

Eloise Ferrara-Neched, Procurement Manager Royal Mail Group

Together, we have achieved the perfect balance of sustainability and cost efficiency, proving that both can go hand in hand for an outstanding travel management experience. Get in touch with us to find out how we can help with your journey to net zero!