One of the world’s leading online retailers has announced it has achieved a 30 per cent reduction in operational carbon emissions per order.
Since 2015, ASOS has cut carbon emissions to meet its Carbon 2020 strategy.
Operational carbon emissions results from transportation of goods, fulfilment centres, packaging, offices and business travel, but does not include the carbon emissions associated with initial production.
ASOS said in a statement it recognises the importance of measuring and reducing emissions associated with product manufacture, and currently cover this through our work with the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan.
ASOS also revealed in its annual Carbon report that its achieved three years of consecutive reductions in carbon emissions per order, and an 18 per cent reduction in customer delivery emissions in the 2018/19 financial year, principally due to the opening of a new fulfilment centre in Atlanta, USA.
During the four years of Carbon 2020 (which ran from FY16 to FY19), ASOS grew from a £1.44b (AU$2.8b) revenue business with 12.4m active customers, to a £2.73b (AU$5.4b) business with 20.3m active customers, resulting in an increase in total emissions.
However, as a result of its Carbon 2020 strategy that prioritised increasing energy efficiency, reducing delivery and packaging emissions, and increasing ASOS’ use of renewable energy, carbon emissions fell on a per-order basis.
Nick Beighton, ASOS CEO said he signed off a new carbon strategy, ‘Carbon 2020,’ which defined how ASOS, through the delivery of six big ambitions, planned to meet its goal to reduce carbon intensity – grams of carbon dioxide per customer order – every year until 2020.
“Those ambitions focussed on reducing emissions relating to our customer deliveries and returns, order packaging, energy efficiency, reducing energy consumption, and switching to renewable energy sources,” he said.
“They were broad aims that helped us to define and focus our work on short-term goals.”
Nick said five years on from the launch of Carbon 2020, the company is incredibly proud to have achieved everything it set out to do with a landmark reduction in carbon intensity per customer order of a staggering 30 per cent since 2015, and consecutive reductions delivered every year since the strategy launched.
ASOS serves its 21.7 million active customers from fulfilment centres in the UK, US and Europe, delivering ASOS packages to almost every country in the world.