Results

Pro-Akademia in cooperation with other partners has developed the deliverable D4.3 Long term exploitation plan. The document identifies and describes the project results that would be used by each of the project partners. The results could be utilized twofold: externally, which means that they will be offered to other entities (as a business offer, as a scientific article etc.), or internally, by improving own procedures and methods. In the case of Quriers, the most important results are a carbon offsetting service and a transformation plan towards a carbon-neutral company. For Pro-Akademia, the most significant is new knowledge on the transport industry and insights on practical aspects of the implementation of emission reduction measures at the level of a single company. ZEW’s main outcome are results of the microeconomic experiment explaining which factors convince courier company customers, in particular Polish one, to voluntary payments for environmental projects. Finally, myclimate improved its knowledge about the Polish market specifics. The report also indicates actions that each partner will take up to further use the project results, as well as describes tools and methods that will be applied.

The ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research completed the first part of Work Package 3 “Offsetting carbon emissions and supporting measures” (WP3). The results are described in deliverable 3.1 “Experimental Design for the implementation of a CO₂-compensation mechanism”. The aim of WP 3 is to develop a systematic approach for decreasing the environmental impact of CO₂-emissions for small and medium-sized courier companies in Poland and Germany by developing and testing measures for carbon offsetting in cooperation with a courier service provider, who is also a project partner.

Deliverable 3.1 develops the research questions and the experimental design for a field experiment.  The field experiment will be implemented as a randomized controlled trial (RCT) at a later stage of this WP. The aim of the experiment will be to study different factors influencing customers to contribute to the public good (i.e. climate protection) and to identify effective methods to increase participation. The deliverable contains a brief overview of relevant economic literature dealing with RCTs in the context of carbon offsetting as well as behavioral studies concerning public good provision of firms and households. Based on the state of the literature, the basic idea for the experimental design is developed and hypotheses are formulated. The report further includes a detailed description of the implementation of the experiment as well as a description of how individual emissions produced per delivery can be calculated, which is especially relevant to the partners.

In the further process of WP3 the experiment will be conducted.

RIC Pro-Akademia completed Deliverable 2.2 “Action plan for transformation into carbon neutral company for Quriers” (D2.2), which is the final step of Work Package 2 “Green company strategy development and implementation” (WP2).

Within WP2 we analysed the environment in which Quriers operates and conducted a study on measures which could be implemented to improve company’s sustainability performance. As a result of a 10-month research, the D2.2 provides Quriers with a clear and feasible middle-term action plan for implementation of measures that will mitigate total Quriers’ environmental impact by 2021. Based on the needs analysis consisting of environmental impact assessment of the company, provided previously  by myclimate  in D1.2 “Environmental Impact Assessment of Quriers’ Company”,  different types of actions, such as choosing energy efficient appliances or reducing emissions from vehicles, have been proposed to mitigate Quriers’ externalities. Then, results from D2.1 “Strategic analysis of the Quriers company” have been applied to evaluate feasibility of each action and impact on the main objective. As a result, a list of tasks to be implemented by Quriers during a two-stage process has been proposed, starting from actions bringing the highest impact and/or actions which require to use the least resources, and then proceeding with less effective, but still essential measures.

RIC Pro-Akademia with a support of other project partners completed Deliverable 2.1 “Strategic analysis of the Quriers company” (D2.1), which is the first part of Work Package 2 “Green company strategy development and implementation” (WP2).

The overall objective of WP2 is to develop strategies for improving Quriers’ environmental performance. Using a holistic approach, total efficiency gains of each of these options will be calculated and an optimal strategy will be proposed. This step may involve e.g. incentive programs for customers to change their purchase habits that allow optimizing vehicle use, innovative technical solutions for packaging, offer of emissions offset.

The aim of the D2.1 is to perform a strategic analysis of the courier company’s business model to understand the environment in which the company is operating, interactions between this environment and the company and what types of actions are possible to introduce in a long-term action plan. In particular, D2.1 analyses external conditions influencing the courier market and the courier market itself, with indicators describing current state and trends of development. The report shows also the most important information about Quriers, in the context of its interaction with external entities. Multidimensional assessment of Quriers is performed, which allows to identify areas in which changes are possible to be introduced, especially in the view of customer demands and competitors’ readiness to respond to Quriers measures. Based on this information, possible directions of the Quriers’ business model development are specified, aimed at company transformation into a carbon-neutral one.

Information presented in this report, completed with findings from D1.2 Environmental Impact Assessment of Quriers’ Company, will be used as inputs to D2.2 Action plan for transformation into carbon neutral company for Quriers.

Together with our project partners, myclimate finished the Work Package 1 (Status analysis of environmental performance).  The overall objective of WP1 was to identify and quantify all greenhouse gas emissions resulting from Quriers, a Polish delivery supplier, and to develop an emission model to compensate any transport services Quriers is offering. Besides the Corporate Carbon Footprint of Quriers, also the Product Carbon Footprint (greenhouse gas emissions of a specific service/transport) was assessed for all delivery services of Quriers including own resources and sub-contractors according to the European Standard (CEN EN 16258), a methodology for the calculation and declaration of energy consumption and GHG emissions of transport services. Quriers’ services were split into Bike, City services, National Express, National Standard and International Services, plus cooled transportation and transportation via public transportation as options for all services. All categories were analysed and processed in the compensation model. As transport distances during the ordering process are mostly unknown, a ZIP code model is used to estimate emissions from national transport services. For the data collection and emissions calculation according to the greenhouse gas protocol the myclimate tool smart 3 was used.

RIC Pro-Akademia, CO₂URIER project research partner from Poland, successfully completed the first project deliverable entitled “Quriers’ business model analysis”. The report analyses the environment in which Quriers operates as well as interactions between this environment and the company. All steps of the company’s activity were investigated - from the first contact with the client, by parcels preparation, to the final parcel delivery. All areas of Quriers’ daily operations were analysed, focusing on those with the greatest potential environmental externalities. By means of the analyses of customers, key suppliers, subcontractors, and competitors, the report determined Quriers’ market position, in particular threats and opportunities for further business model development. Investigation of the company’s resources (buildings, vehicles, human resources, media, and other materials consumption) provided first insights into Quriers’ environmental impact.
Information presented in the completed report will be a start point for several follow-up tasks. A more detailed analysis on the company’s carbon footprint is currently continued by myclimate in a second deliverable called “Environmental impact assessment of Quriers company”. Later this year, all partners will develop an optimal strategy to transform Quriers into a carbon neutral company , which the company will then implement.