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We’re making our business greener. You’re invited to watch.

We’re an international shipper based in New York City. And we pollute. Yes, that’s right. I said it. We pollute.

But today our company is making the commitment that over the next nine months-by the end of 2008-we will reduce our carbon footprint by 66% to become the most environmentally responsible air courier in the United States. Through this blog, you’re invited to watch us convert from a business that pollutes to one that is lean and green.

First Global Xpress
Before I launch into the hows and whys of what we’re going to do, let me tell you a little bit about us. First Global Xpress services the international express shipping market. We are unique because we ship directly to our client’s final destination via commercial flights, rather than using the typical hub-and-spoke system of large integrators like FedEx, UPS, or DHL. This model of shipping direct is by far the best option for the environment when an international delivery has to be completed in one to three days.

Our blog: ShipGreener.com
Through ShipGreener.com, I am going to document the changes that First Global Xpress is making to become greener. We will be changing everything about how our operation conducts itself and what kind of impact we are having on the environment. This will have an effect not only on our company’s carbon footprint, but also on our client’s footprint as well. We are an important part of our clients’ businesses and we service a sector of their company that inherently accounts for a large percentage of their footprint. By making ourselves greener, we make our clients greener as well.

There are many things that all businesses could do to lessen their impact on the environment. We are in the enviable position of being able to drastically reduce our impact through very attainable goals. Our business has a lot of moving parts, and where there is something moving or being produced there is room to make it more efficient. Some examples of this are in the packaging we are using, the vans our couriers are driving, and the means by which we transport our goods.

To the extent that our business pollutes less, we’ll bring that efficiency to our clients. In turn, we’ll show that their choice of First Global Xpress is that much more powerful and correct. We’ll document these changes so you’ll be able to see the quantitative differences derived from simple changes.

By the end of 2008, our goal is to have reduced the current carbon footprint of our business by 66%.

We’re currently working on a plan of how to benchmark our goals to represent exactly what 100% is. Considering the nature of our business, it is probably safe to say that 100% is not attainable. But once the plan is officially fleshed out, the metrics of our progress will be represented on our website by a green bar that increases as we hit our goals (look for this by Wednesday 04/02). The goals will be clearly stated on the bar with some kind of roll over functionality.

Some of our initial ideas for reducing our carbon footprint are: Read More