Can a Parcel Room Increase eCommerce Sustainability?

The modern way of life has severely impacted the planet. While it might not seem much, the effect of greenhouse gases has raised Earth’s temperature by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, which has disrupted the delicate balance of nature. If left unchecked, this will lead to more extreme weather patterns, the melting of the polar ice caps and a great number of animals becoming extinct.

Every industry has to do what they can to cut greenhouse gases, including the eCommerce and residential sectors. Parcel SafePlace plays an instrumental part in reducing CO2 emissions, helping both industries simultaneously.

As more and more of us in the UK shop online, focusing on sustainable delivery practises is key to the future of our planet. We often discuss how a smart parcel room saves time and money in BTR/PBSA settings, but now, we’re going to explain how a package room can also increase eCommerce sustainability.

eCommerce sustainability is how we buy and sell products online without overusing the planet’s resources. Consuming more resources than we need harms Earth’s environment, so it’s important we find more reliable and ethical ways to support eCommerce business models.

For Parcel SafePlace, this means solving the last mile delivery problem. We install a low energy consumption parcel room that ensures all deliveries to residential buildings can be completed, which greatly reduces CO2 emissions.

Below, we explain the positive impact our rooms have on the environment.

When we think about the amenities in BTR and PBSA, we often don’t realise how much power they consume so they can be used efficiently.

Co-working spaces and student study areas will be full of residents firing up computers and plugging in their laptops, most rooms have to remain constantly lit as they’re almost always in use, and high traffic areas will need to be temperature-regulated either through central heating in the winter or air conditioning in the summer.

In comparison, parcel rooms are very low energy consumption areas because they’re designed to house packages, not people.

We can install motion-sensor lighting in parcel rooms, meaning lights only come on when they’re needed and will switch themselves off once a resident leaves the area.

As the room will only be used for a few minutes at a time, there’s no need to keep the room heated or connected to an A/C unit. If you think your residents would benefit from a cold storage area for food deliveries, this can be incorporated, but it’s by no means a necessity as rooms will be mainly used for package deliveries.

Our parcel rooms come with security cameras and an electronic logging system, but they are the only devices that require electricity. In all, a package room is an amenity that almost every resident will use, but only needs a small amount of electricity to run efficiently.

One of the biggest “first-world problems” everyone comes across at some point is not being home when the delivery courier knocks at the door. To most people, this is just a minor inconvenience; nothing that a rescheduled delivery or a trip to the sorting office can’t solve.

But this first-world problem is a much greater issue when you look beneath the surface. Parcels are often transported in large vans, which use up a significant amount of petrol or diesel, and one of the key factors in fuel consumption is weight.

According to UK Government reports, road transport accounts for more than half of the country’s oil demand, and relies on petrol and diesel to meet 98% of its needs.

As more deliveries are missed, it increases the amount of fuel a van has to use to transport goods while the courier is still making deliveries before they return to the depot.

Parcel rooms improve eCommerce sustainability by ensuring no package goes undelivered. They cut the amount of fuel that’s burned with every round trip, greatly reducing CO2 emissions as couriers have significantly less undelivered goods with them that need to be taken back to the warehouse.

It works both ways, too. If your residents were simply left a card telling them to collect their parcel from a sorting office, it might mean making a special journey in a car or taxi to collect it.

Keeping vehicles off the road as much as possible leads to a more sustainable delivery service, so make sure to provide couriers with a safe and secure place to store every package to keep CO2 emissions as low as possible.

Amazon Key for Business provides multi-tenanted properties with a hands off approach to parcel management. It ensures every delivery from the company is completed first time, cutting out the need for second delivery attempts, residents picking up items from the sorting office, and all without impacting your staff’s time. Here’s how it works:

1. The Amazon delivery driver arrives at the designated entry point
2. Entry is requested via Amazon Cloud
3. The driver receives verification to be on the premises
4. Entry is granted on a time-limited basis
5. The driver delivers the package to a predetermined location, such as your parcel room
6. Once all packages are delivered, the driver leaves and can no longer gain access without another designated delivery slot

A smart device is integrated into your building’s current access system with the Amazon Delivery app, and is easily paired with:

• Fob readers
• Call boxes
• Remote openers
• Coded gates
• Motorised gates and doors

Every industry has to find innovative methods to improve sustainability, and Parcel SafePlace creates an additional way to help by solving the last mile delivery problem for eCommerce companies and residential buildings. With all packages being successfully delivered to a low energy consumption parcel room, we can reduce the amount of fuel being burned on every delivery route.

This comes with a range of benefits for your building such as:

• Improving your brand image
• Creating a more sustainable and responsible development
• Keeping residents happy without increasing operational costs
• Improving your relationship with courier companies

For more information on how a parcel room improves eCommerce sustainability and adds more value to your development in a range of different ways, get in touch with a member of our team today.