Innovation

SF’s marketing manager Nancy Zhang says, “We have been using electronic orders and receipts for many years, being dedicated to build a paperless delivery business; moreover, SF has invested in the research and development of a new process to recycle our package bags and boxes, in order to further reduce waste and environmental pollution.” The innovation involves the whole business process, from raw material of package bags to the delivery system: instead of traditional paper bags, SF is starting to use specially designed canvas bags to store and deliver intercity packages and documents; one canvas bag is about 70x24x43cm and is made from materials strong enough to carry up to 250 pounds per bag, in order to meet certain requirements in SF’s intercity delivery. Each bag can be reused around 20 times and can be recycled at the end of its useful life. Meanwhile, all cars SF uses in its package delivery are energy efficient, and it is planning to replace them with electric motor cars in the future. As Nancy said, “We named it Green Delivery, which is a sustainable way to our further business success.”

The innovative new bags and recycle strategy applied in Green Delivery also changed the internal packing and delivery process in SF. “In the past, we were only concerned about the disposal of used bags; now we have to consider the overall process, consider how to embed the new canvas bags into our whole supply chain management,” Nancy commented. It was a challenge for them to redesign the intercity delivery procedure, getting all these bags recycled while not affecting normal delivery business. It also raised conflicts between the company and its suppliers who used to provide paper bags to SF. Nancy smiled as she said, “We came through all these difficulties, and finally have our mission done.”

Inspiration

As Nancy put it, “In 2015, the volume of packages in China was 20 billion; assuming the average weight of packaging material for each was 200g, there would be 400 thousand tons of waste in one year, which was an incredible figure. Not to mention the resources and energy needed to deliver all these packages.” As an industry leader, SF is always focusing on managing its business in a sustainable way, insisting to go green and eliminating waste and pollution to the earth, given the fact that the volume of courier deliveries in China ranked the first all over the world in 2015 and the waste generated is continuously a great environmental problem. Realizing this problem, SF started to use recyclable package bags and boxes and energy efficient cars in delivery since 2015.

When we speak of innovation, we normally think of something with high technology and things we had never seen before. However, it is possible to use existing technology and materials to develop a more sustainable way of doing businesses and in our daily lives as well. Sometimes we only need some adjustment to our normal behavior, then we can make a positive impact to the society and the world.

Overall impact

As a fast expanding company aiming at continuous growth, SF always pays special attention to cost control and branding strategy. Upon adoption and execution of Green Delivery, the company found that it is a sustainable way to reduce the packaging costs; it also helps build SF as a brand with social care. “Besides the cost competency we gain from Green Delivery, we benefit a lot from its social impact,” Nancy said. “Being regarded as a leader of green brand in the logistic industry, SF enjoyed more exposure in the media and public discussions as well, which would help us a lot in our branding and further expansion.”

Business benefit

There are two major business benefits for SF to execute Green Delivery strategy. First, SF gained lots of public awareness for its sustainable strategy, which was quite rare in the Chinese courier delivery market at that time; “The established green image of our company helped improve customer loyalty, especially because our target customers are those who care about high quality life and are willing to pay for extra values. These new recyclable bags are part of our marketing strategy as well,” said Nancy with pride. Second, it helped reduce the cost of packaging. “It may be surprising that by adopting these new canvas bags, we actually reduced our overall cost in packaging.” According to Nancy, the cost of one paper bag was about ¥1 and that of one canvas bag is about ¥15, while one canvas bag can be used 20 times, which makes the average cost ¥0.75.

Social and environmental benefit

The impact of Green Delivery initiated by SF is definitely not limited inside the company. By disclosure and exposure by the media, now more and more customers, and courier companies as well, are becoming aware of the waste generated by their daily packages. As of now, many other courier companies in China have started to develop their own sustainable strategy. Green Delivery reduces waste generated in the whole business process and reserves resources of our earth. It is a good story to tell, inspiring companies in the industry to care more about the environment while doing businesses and being responsible in their consumption and production; these goals could be achieved by developing their own innovation and infrastructure embedded into their business process.

Green Delivery also triggers people’s intention to protect our environment by means of their daily behaviors: customers nowadays are becoming more and more willing to reduce waste by choosing to combine their items into one package for delivery; all of these efforts combined would make a big change to our planet.

Interview

Nancy Zhang, Marketing Manger