Our focus areas

Strategy, planning and activity are coordinated by a steering group for each area - environment, marketplace, community and workplace - and are chaired by a member of the Leadership Team.

The areas of focus for the groups are based on our assessment of the material issues for our business. We use a range of mechanisms throughout the year to ensure we continue to address the most important areas of impact, such as

• an annual review of the corporate sustainability programme and its objectives
• annual assessment of the strategic risks to the New Zealand Post Group
• a cross-business review of the risk and opportunities for the environmental, marketplace, community and workplace areas
• participation in national discussion forums to identify emerging issues for the business from a sustainable development perspective.

The outcomes of this work help us to continually refine our key issues, their associated goals, actions and targets. Our key areas of focus (material issues) for the New Zealand Post Group are:

• Environment
  • Emissions - green house gases
    • Fuel use
    • Energy consumption
    • Waste disposal
  • Resource use - office paper
• Marketplace
  • Identification of high risk supplier categories
  • Reduction in resource use of products and services
• Community
  • Ensuring social and economic development for New Zealand communities through focusing on:
    • supporting active participation to improve health and wellness
    • increasing education levels, and
    • supporting business clusters to improve productivity.
• Workplace
  • Valuing differences
  • Health, safety and wellbeing
  • Skills development and lifelong learning

While these focus areas are common across the Group, businesses place a higher emphasis on some issues due to the nature of their operations. They work to a set of targets, consistent with the size and nature of their businesses.

Environment

The Corporate Sustainability Environmental Steering Group leads our cross-group approach to reducing our environmental impact and is led by the Group General Manager, Operations. 

The aim is to deliver a measurable improvement in the New Zealand Post Group's environmental performance and impacts by identifying issues, setting targets and implementing action plans to achieve targets. 

Our people are hugely enthusiastic about promoting work practices that lower our impact on the environment.

Reduction in fuel consumption

With a significant vehicle fleet across the New Zealand Post Group businesses, we are looking at ways to reduce the amount of fuel used. 

Approaches taken so far include:

• Using technology to plot the most direct routes for couriers and the most efficient use of each vehicle.
• Testing hybrid and electric vehicles.
• Testing electric motorcycles.
• Testing combustion catalysts to save fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

See the targets that have been set for fuel reduction.

Reduction in energy use

New Zealand Post Group operates sites throughout New Zealand and we are committed to reducing the amount of energy we use. 

Ways we are working to reduce our energy usage include:

• Undertaking site energy audits 
• New buildings and building refits are designed on sustainability principles and include an energy review as part of the process. Standard elements in new buildings include such things as solar heating, energy-efficient lighting, double glazing, water saving collection and the use of sustainable building materials 
• We run energy saving programmes encouraging staff to adopt energy saving practices at work and at home.

See our targets for energy saving.

Reduction in waste going to landfill

We are seeing recycling levels in excess of 80% of total waste at sites that have adopted waste/recycling reduction programmes.

A recycling centre which takes old office furniture, equipment, Postie bicycles and in fact anything that could be used again, from across the New Zealand Post Group and refurbishes it to "as new" condition. These items are then offered for sale back to teams in the New Zealand Post Group, and businesses outside, saving both resources and money.

Reduction in paper use

As a large New Zealand company, we are tackling the amount of paper we use. 

Initiatives to cut down on paper use include:

• All New Zealand Post Group companies now have double sided, black and white printing as the default for all printers/photocopiers. Once this policy came into effect, paper consumption was reduced by around 25%

Reduction in emissions

Reducing vehicle emissions will help us achieve our overall target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12% by 2012. 

Current initiatives are:

• Express Couriers Ltd is encouraging drivers to meet Euro 4 Engine standards when they replace vehicles. 
• Work is well underway on upgrading our fleet of fork hoists with special filters that clean and purify emissions.
• Testing 100% bio diesel in courier vans.

See our targets in this area.

Marketplace

Our Marketplace work programme is governed through our Corporate Sustainability Marketplace Steering Group led by our Group General Manager, Customer Solutions Services. The marketplace activity focuses on supply chain management and product and service offerings.

As a large business involved in many aspects of New Zealand life, we strive to bring our commitment to sustainability to the marketplace.

Packaging

One area that we focus on is the reduction of the impact of packaging, both for senders and receivers.

• Express Couriers Ltd introduced an eco range of envelopes boxes and tubes made from 100% recycled material.
• Express Couriers Ltd introduced the "Backtrack your Trackpak" programme allowing customers to return courier packaging from any company to Express Couriers who will then arrange for the returned material to be recycled. Any profit from the programme is donated to charity.

We are also developing a Sustainable Marketing Guide for use inside New Zealand Post Group and with suppliers which gives guidelines on design and print processes to ensure minimum environmental impact, and have joined the Packaging Council so that we can do better in this area over time.

Sustainable procurement

All suppliers are asked to demonstrate their practical commitment to corporate responsibility. We have developed criteria on sustainability which are included in all assessments of potential suppliers. We have also established a Procurement Code of Conduct which we use to work with suppliers.

Community

Led by our CEO, Kiwibank, the key responsibility of the Corporate Sustainability Community Steering Group is to develop and implement an appropriate community investment strategy and action plan.

Consistent with our commitment to communities, we have aligned our community investment to three key areas of key community need:

1. Support active participation to lift health and wellbeing
2. Increase the education levels of our communities
3. Support business clusters to lift business productivity in the community.

We understand that as a group of businesses we have a unique set of skills that we can use to help community organisations achieve their goals.

Workplace

Creating a workplace that makes people want to join, stay and work to their full potential is a core element of our Statement of Commitment. 

A governance group, led by the Group Manager Human Resources promotes and coordinates initiatives for improvement. 

Activities in this area include:

• The establishment of our Safety and Wellbeing Statement of Commitment (PDF - 41kb).
• Measuring and reporting on the international safety measure "Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate" to help us target our injury prevention initiatives.
• A dedicated Safety and Wellbeing team runs regular briefings and programmes to promote safety throughout our businesses. Recent safety briefings and new high-visibility vests for Posties have achieved a 30% reduction in lost-time injuries in 07/08 and a 36% reduction in lost-time injuries among our couriers in the same period.
• We run an annual engagement survey which gives all staff a chance to say how they feel about working at New Zealand Post Group.
• We value diversity and have established a Women in Leadership programme to encourage more women to aim for senior management roles (which has won an EEO Trust Award) and have developed a Diversity Policy.