Environmentally-friendly measures
Vehicles
Modernising our entire vehicle fleet to achieve higher fuel efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions is of course a primary objective.
The number of environmentally-friendly vehicles we have on the road is steadily rising. GLS is furthermore testing a number of alternative fuel vehicles (primarily in city centers in Germany, Italy and Poland).
Driver education is also vital in reducing fuel consumption and thus we also offer special training to our drivers on how to drive more fuel efficiently. In addition to our commercial vehicles, we are also consistently replacing our fleet of company cars with low-emission vehicles.
Transport planning
Utilising modern IT-based planning tools to improve operational and transport processes is a matter of course to GLS.
Optimised route planning makes it possible to consistently minimise transport routes. GLS bundles lower-volume transports for processing through our central hub in Neuenstein or through regional hubs, thereby benefiting from high-capacity operations supported by the use of jumbo swap bodies on high-volume routes and the loose-load approach.
Buildings
Every new GLS depot is constructed with special consideration of ecological aspects. The first green depot we built in 2009 near Stuttgart (Germany) now serves as the basic blueprint for all our new depots.
Environmentally-guided features include rainwater harvesting, photovoltaic systems, recyclable building materials and heat pumps. Five green depots are now up and running in France and Germany. The sixth is currently under construction in Northern Germany and more will follow.
Even when sites are not being built green from the ground up, we’re also modernising existing facilities and gradually replacing outdated technologies with more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
Further measures
To further improve our ecological footprint, many other strategies are being consistently implemented in virtually all of our commercial activities. Former paper-based processes such as invoices, driver delivery lists and delivery receipts are all being gradually converted into electronic processes all across Europe. In many GLS countries, customers can now opt to receive digital invoices plus we have also created an arsenal of more than 80 video conferencing solutions throughout the group to help continuously reduce our total number of business trips.