Royal Mail & Watershed’s Plan to Cut Supply Chain Emissions

As consumer and stakeholder expectations give rise to greater demand for accountability and transparency surrounding sustainability, organisations must effectively integrate sustainability into their operations to help catalyse the shift to a greener future. 

One way they can do this is through effective partnerships and close collaboration.

Demonstrating the effectiveness of working together, the British postal service, Royal Mail, has collaborated with the enterprise sustainability platform Watershed to help measure and reduce its emissions.

As a result, Royal Mail will be able to effectively support its decarbonisation strategy and wider sustainability goals by utilising high-quality emissions data.

The data-driven approach will empower Royal Mail to accurately measure and reduce its supply chain emissions while meeting stakeholder sustainability demands for transparent reporting.

Ellen McCormack, Head of Europe at Watershed, explains: "It is a privilege to work with Royal Mail to help measure the postal service’s carbon footprint and, ultimately, execute on its climate goals.

“Royal Mail is a leader in decarbonising the logistics sector and, together with Watershed’s data measurement and management, our potential impact on the industry’s sustainability progress is huge.”

The partnership: empowering sustainable action 

This partnership between Watershed and Royal Mail will establish a new standard for emissions management in logistics. 

Watershed will empower Royal Mail to respond to sustainability disclosure demands from customers, regulators, stakeholders and investors effectively and alter its decarbonisation actions by providing high-quality emissions data.

With 66% of its total emissions coming from supply chain emissions, the partnership will allow Royal Mail to accurately measure and reduce a significant source of emissions.

This will mean the postal organisation can engage suppliers more effectively to enhance emissions reductions and identify the most impactful decarbonisation actions across its entire supply chain.

Watershed crafted a draft carbon footprint that featured more than three thousand suppliers and vendors for Royal Mail. This was populated using public reports to make 10% of Royal Mail’s supplier data automatically available.

The information will provide Royal Mail with granular insights to discover the best methods for supply chain decarbonisation and help suppliers to report their own sustainability progress.

Royal Mail can accelerate its decarbonisation strategy and improve supply chain sustainability by utilising Watershed’s data capabilities. 

Did you know? Edenir Nunes Chrysostali, SRM Director & Scope 3 Lead at Royal Mail, delivered an engaging keynote presentation at PSC LIVE: Sustainability 2025 that explored how we can tackle Scope 3 emissions.

Royal Mail’s sustainability goals

Royal Mail has continued to show its commitment to sustainability across its operations and is the UK’s greenest parcel operator (based on average gCO2e emissions per parcel delivered by UK parcel operators, as announced by Citizens Advice 2023 Parcels League Table). 

The organisation operates the UK’s largest electric van delivery fleet of more than 5,000 electric vans and purchases 100% renewable energy. 

Royal Mail's Steps to Zero strategy focuses on resource efficiency, decarbonisation and circular economy principles to help reach its goal of Net Zero by 2040. 

Its partnership with Watershed will directly support its sustainability strategy and leadership by utilising supplier collaboration, data-driven insights and emissions tracking. 

The future of sustainable logistics 

The partnership between Royal Mail and Watershed will help improve the sustainability and accountability of the low-carbon logistics industry by integrating supplier engagement with data-driven emissions reduction.

Not only will it set a new standard for emissions transparency by using real-time emissions tracking, it will also help other organisations improve their decarbonisation efforts in complex supply chains. 

Royal Mail can utilise this partnership to identify areas and actions to cut emissions, such as an increased use of renewable energy, expansion of EV fleets and the adoption of alternative fuels and sustainable packaging. 

Watershed and Royal Mail’s partnership will set a standard for the logistics industry to embrace emissions tracking and reduction methods.

Miles Durrant, Head of Climate Strategy & Circular at Royal Mail, states: “Watershed enables Royal Mail to access granular insights to engage with our diverse range of suppliers and plan emissions reductions. Watershed helps us understand which actions will be most effective for reaching our Net-Zero 2040 goal."

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