Pitney Bowes Cuts CO2 Emissions 4.5%

by | Aug 18, 2009

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pitneyenvironmentalperformance2Pitney Bowes Inc. has reduced its overall carbon emissions by 4.5 percent and increased its waste recycling/prevention by 45.5 percent, according to the company’s Corporate Responsibility Report for 2008.

Pitney Bowes’ online report covers topics such as environmental initiatives, ethics and governance, employee diversity and development, philanthropy and voluntarism.

Here are some highlights on the company’s environmental performance.

Due to energy conservation programs such as better lighting systems, more efficient chillers, and use of motion sensors, Pitney Bowes has reduced its electricity consumption by more than 3-million kilowatt hours, saving $873,000 and reducing its carbon footprint by 2,602 metric tons of CO2.

The company has been purchasing renewable energy credits (RECs) since 2003 to support green power projects using technologies such as solar, wind and biomass. RECs have yielded the company more than 17,000 metric tons of CO2 emission reductions. In 2008, the company’s purchase of Green-e certified RECs helped reduce CO2 by 2,331 metric tons. The company reduced its indirect and direct carbon emissions from 101,792 metric tons in 2007 to 97,242 metric tons in 2008.

As part of its Design for Environmental Quality (DfEQ) program, which was created to minimize environmental impacts at each stage of the life cycle, Pitney’s latest line of inserters consumes 10 to 14 percent less energy per cycle than previous models.

Over 95 percent of all components of its mailing equipment are designed to be recyclable, and the company recovers nearly all of its postal meters and approximately 85 percent of mailing products, according to the report.

In 2008, Pitney Bowes processed nearly 8 million pounds of product including copper, aluminum, steel, plastic, cardboard and paper through its return programs. Returned equipment that cannot be reused is sent to approved recycling partners for resource recovery, according to the company. Product recycling in U.S. and Canada increased from 5,741,312 pounds in 2007 to 13,588,464 pounds in 2008.

In 2008, Pitney’s WasteWise recycling program diverted 7,523 tons of materials from landfills or incineration, including large quantities of plastic machine-covers, cardboard, foam and film packaging, wooden pallets, steel, aluminum, copper and electronics. The company increased its waste recycling/prevention from 33,205,227 pounds in 2007 to 48,252,67 pounds in 2008.

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