Given that mail is used by virtually all environmental, consumer and nonprofit groups, it should be fairly obvious that mail has a minimal environmental impact. That said, no product or service is without impact, so it makes sense to ask two questions: How does mail relate to green concerns and how can the environmental impact of mail be reduced?

Pitney Bowes has now comes out with an interesting discussion of such issues. Entitled The Environmental Impact of Mail: A Baseline, the 30-page report looks at such matters as CO2 emissions, carbon footprints, forest acreage, landfill use and related topics.

One item that struck me as interesting was CO2 generation. The U.S. annually produces 20.1 tons of C02 per person. How much of that is from the production and distribution of mail?

To get the answer we first need to convert tons into grams: For instance, according to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility there are 909,091 grams of lead in a one ton, so 20.1 tons would equal 18,272,729.1 grams.

We can then look at mail. As the Pitney Bowes study explains:

“The USPS delivers about 515 letters per capita per year. Using a general estimate of 25 grams of CO2 per letter generated within the postal value chain and the worst case scenario of 50 grams of CO2 per letter, the distribution of these letters generates 13 – 26 kg of CO2 per capita.”

Let’s see, in one kilogram there are 1,000 grams, so 13 to 26 kilograms would equal 13,000 to 26,000 kilograms.

The sum of 26,000 goes into 18,272,729.1 a total of 702.797 times.

Seen the other way, 26,000 equals 0.001422 of 18,272,729.1.

The idea of the Pitney Bowes study is not that mail is without environmental impact, but rather that mail has a minimal green cost; efforts should be made to reduce such impact as mail has even further; and that all products and services — including email — have an environmental cost.

No less important, environmental costs must be balanced against the benefits produced by a given product or service.

No product or service has a zero impact and mail represents some 8,300,000 jobs nationwide. Given the minimal environmental cost of mail does it make sense to lose jobs in every neighborhood and community and to close local post offices in the quest for environmental perfection — something which can never be achieved?

Responsible environmental groups all have the same answer: They mail.

A copy of the study is available by pressing here.

Technorati Tags: benefits, CO2, costs, environment, grams, green, mail, tons

Seen another way, when the cost of gas goes up 15 cents per gallon then USPS expenses increase by $18,150,000.

In the context of an entity that had revenues of nearly $75 billion in fiscal 2007, it might seem that $18 million or so is not a big deal. But the problem is that gas prices have not just risen by 15 centers per gallon.

According to the Energy Information Administration, gas today is priced at $3.663 per gallon. Two years ago the price was $2.966 per gallon. That’s a difference of $.697 per gallon. If you need to buy 121 million gallons your additional cost is almost $85 million.

The problem is that as bad as gas price increases have been in the past few years, they could get a lot worse. Think of $4 a gallon this summer — and $5, $6 or $7 in the next year or two. Now we’re talking about huge amounts of money for a delivery system which is dependent on gas, especially when you consider that the Postal Service says it had a $5.1 billion net loss in fiscal 2007.

Technorati Tags: costs, economics, mail, pricing