Assessment of greenhouse gas emissions in shipping
Munich, October 20, 2023: In order to provide Vinted Go with meaningful information about the climate footprint of its shipping operations, valantic’s sustainability and supply chain experts helped the company develop a software tool that evaluates and interprets the logistics network’s greenhouse gas footprint.
Vinted Marketplace is Europe’s leading international online customer-to-customer (C2C) marketplace dedicated to second-hand fashion. As part of its shipping offer to members, last year Vinted launched a new business Vinted Go. Vinted Go is focused on developing products and services to tackle challenges within the shipping industry and reduce friction to consumers. In particular, Vinted Go focuses on delivery via PUDO (Pick-up and Drop-off) points and lockers, which reduce climate impact as compared to home delivery.
In order to capture key sustainability metrics regularly and in detail, the project goal was to develop a logic for calculating the CO2e-footprint, establish a process for data collection, and implement a tool for monitoring emissions. At the beginning of the project, the processes, service providers, and suppliers in the network were analyzed and consultants visited a Vinted Go shipping warehouse to identify all emissions drivers. Primary data on energy and fuel consumption, locker manufacturing, storage and office equipment was collected by the Vinted shipping teams. valantic and Vinted Go then jointly developed a tool for recording and assessing greenhouse gas emissions, which satisfies Vinted’s specific reporting requirements. A simple, user-friendly input screen is used to record activity and emissions data and to transfer, link, and calculate it in a data warehouse. The analysis tool provides various views and drill-downs to track the results and CO2e emissions per package shipped.
Emissions data is the prerequisite for optimization
“Determining Scope 3 emissions is often difficult; it requires the cooperation of service providers, or is in itself very complex, as with the ecological footprint of locker manufacturing,” says Nina Münkel, a logistics management consultant with a focus on sustainability at valantic. “However, we have managed to provide our customers with the necessary transparency about the climate footprint of their logistics services in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This is the prerequisite for targeted improvements and a sustainable future for Vinted Go as a shipping option for customers.”
The calculation of emissions based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol covers different areas (scopes): Scope 1 emissions: Caused and controlled by the company itself; Scope 2 emissions: Caused by purchased energy, such as electricity or gas; and Scope 3 emissions: Caused indirectly along a company’s value chain. Vinted Go’s climate footprint is determined mainly by Scope 3 emissions that are caused by the transport of parcels by service providers and the production of parcel lockers.
“The project with valantic enables us to put sustainability at the heart of our decision-making processes,” says Eileen Krugel, project manager at Vinted Go. “With clear emissions metrics that we can monitor as our shipping network evolves, we are able to better reduce our operational greenhouse gas emissions.”
