Net zero carbon target by 2040: Swiss Post plans to actively extract carbon from the atmosphere through forest management
Net zero carbon emissions by 2040 – that is Swiss Post’s ambitious climate target. Swiss Post plans to reduce its carbon emissions by around 90 percent by 2040. The remaining 10 percent of carbon emissions that cannot be prevented via technological means by that date will be extracted from the atmosphere and stored in the long term. To achieve this, Swiss Post is focusing on various natural methods. One of these is forest management, because a sustainably growing forest removes CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it in the wood. For this reason, Swiss Post is investing in forests and careful forest management. It has signed a first purchase contract for an area of forest in Thuringia in Germany.
Swiss PostReading Time 4 minutes
“The CO2 that we cannot reduce must not remain in the atmosphere”
Swiss Post believes that climate protection cannot wait until tomorrow, and this is why it is acting today. Swiss Post aims to be carbon neutral in its in-house operations from 2030 and to achieve net zero throughout its entire value chain, i.e. in all of its activities in upstream and downstream processes, such as with suppliers and subcontractors, from 2040. Swiss Post’s first priority is to rapidly reduce its own carbon emissions. The biggest leverage it has is electrifying its vehicle fleet. Today, around 50 percent of all Swiss Post vehicles on the road are already emission-free. As a second priority, Swiss Post is investing heavily in renewable energies and replacing fossil fuels. To this end, it is operating more and more solar systems on the rooftops of its properties, such as letter and parcel centers.
“The CO2 that we cannot reduce must not remain in the atmosphere”
These measures will enable Swiss Post to reduce its emissions by around 90 percent by 2040. Even so, there will still be around 10 percent of residual emissions after 2040. “The CO2 that we cannot reduce ourselves must not remain in the atmosphere. We plan to actively extract it from the atmosphere through various measures and store it in the long term,” says Roberto Cirillo, CEO of Swiss Post. High-quality and effective technical carbon neutralization services hardly exist on the market at present. This is why Swiss Post is taking action itself. Given current capabilities, Swiss Post is focusing on “natural” methods to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. One of these methods is sustainable forest management. When trees grow, they extract carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their wood. To ensure lasting carbon capture, the wood must be used in the long term – for example, as sustainable construction timber or for the production of vegetable carbon (see box). When considering possible investments, Swiss Post is guided by clear criteria: “For us, the focus is on the carbon storage potential of forest growth and sustainable use of wood,” explains Roberto Cirillo, CEO of Swiss Post. To implement this kind of long-term commitment, sufficiently large forest or land space must be available in Switzerland or European countries with a comparable level of political and legal stability. For this reason, Swiss Post signed a purchase agreement with the owner of a forest in Germany in June 2023. The area in question is approximately 2,400 hectares of forest and is located in the German state of Thuringia. The actual acquisition of the forest is planned for autumn 2023. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price or the terms.