Customers who miss a delivery in Belgium will now no longer receive paper missed delivery notifications in their letterboxes. Instead, they will receive a notification in the My bpost app or by email to help the postal operator cut carbon emissions by a further 394 metric tons per year.
According to bpost, the switch from paper to digital missed delivery notifications is due to the success of the My bpost app, which is used by 4.3 million Belgians. The digital notification system has been rolled out since February and is now operational in all Belgian municipalities.
Chris Peeters, CEO of bpost, explained, “We want to offer our customers a better, faster and above all easier service, in which their lifestyle and preferences determine the place and the pace of their deliveries. That is why all our products are being improved and, where necessary, even reinvented. The My bpost app is central to this. Digital notifications are just one small step in a whole series of improvements. We also previously integrated [identity verification service] itsme into our app to simplify identification for registered mail. Further improvements will be made very soon so that customers have even more control over the time and place of their delivery.”
Environmental benefits
As well as delivering a more efficient digital customer experience, bpost argues that the new system also takes sustainability to the next level, enabling it to realize the following reductions:
- 302 metric tons of paper per year (a 97% reduction in paper consumption, or 604 fewer trees that need to be felled per year)
- 60,000 of liters of ink per year
- 52 metric tons of glue per year
- 394 metric tons of carbon emissions per year
Service exemptions
The only exemptions to the new rule are parcels shipped by households and when the addressee’s email is unknown. In those cases, a missed delivery notification made from recycled paper will be left at the delivery address.
An exception is also made for registered mail – but bpost says it is making innovations here. Since last month, users have been able to save their delivery preferences for registered mail and authorize others to take receipt of their registered mail in the My bpost app after a digital ID check using itsme. This way, bpost keeps the share of paper notifications as low as possible.