UPS’s road to carbon neutrality

Laura Lane, UPS’s chief corporate affairs and sustainability officer, enters the BBC’s Executive Lounge to discuss how the massive logistics company isn’t waiting for the perfect electric lorry.

While your online purchases are on the road, Laura Lane is keeping on an eye on the impact of the journey. As UPS’s chief corporate affairs and sustainability officer, Lane is working to trim the emissions of the logistics firm, which is responsible for delivering 22 million packages every day across more than 200 countries and territories.

Most of these deliveries are driven on a fleet of 125,000 package cars, vans, lorries and motorcycles, or flown on a fleet of around 500 leased, owned and chartered aircraft. The combined emissions from all these vehicles add up. According to UPS data seen by the BBC, its air and ground operations produced a total of 14 million tonnes of CO2 or equivalent emissions in 2023.

Lane isn’t content to simply wait for the perfect solution, be that an emissions-free aircraft fuel or a fully battery-electric lorry. She’s figuring out the answer as she goes – and the vast amount of data collected by UPS is critical to reaching the company’s sustainability targets. “UPS is an engineering company and a technology company at its foundation,” Lane tells the BBC, “and so we’re always looking for efficiencies. And efficiencies equal sustainability.” 

So far, UPS is finding success. In 2023, it logged an 8.1% decrease in Scope 1 emissions (pollution UPS produces directly), Scope 2 emissions (pollution from sources like electricity UPS uses to power its facilities) and Scope 3 emissions (pollution associated with the company’s suppliers and customers use of UPS’ services). That’s an improvement from 6.9% the previous year.