DHL Express has onboarded new customer Linklaters on its GoGreen Plus service to reduce carbon emissions for its time-definite international (TDI) shipments through the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

In a statement, the logistics company said global law firm Linklaters aims to reduce ('inset') the carbon emissions associated with their shipments across the Asia Pacific and United Arab Emirates (UAE) regions.

"As a firm with a significant global footprint, Linklaters understands the importance of the changing climate and strong environmental management," DHL Express said in the announcement.

It noted that in June 2021, Linklaters adopted firmwide carbon reduction targets to meet by April 2030 — approved by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) — including reducing emissions, and this move further demonstrates the firm’s commitment to reducing Scope 3 emissions by 50%. 

"Sustainability is increasingly becoming an important part of the business for most of our customers. Companies are now more committed than ever to reducing their environmental impact; thus, it is important that we provide them with feasible solutions to do so," said Ken Lee, CEO of DHL Express Asia Pacific. "SAF is our key lever to improve carbon emissions, and we are proud to be the first global express courier to enable our customers to do."

Launched this year, DHL's GoGreen Plus enables its customers to reduce their Scope 3 emissions through insetting.

DHL said this means that customers can effectively bring down carbon emissions that occur in their supply chain by choosing the amount of SAF they want to use for their shipments.

SAF is currently the only scalable solution for the next years to come, given that it is the only option for long-range flights, and SAF can also reduce lifecycle emissions of typical aviation fuel emissions by up to 70-80%.

Robert Elliot, partner and member of the Science-Based Targets Steering Group at Linklaters, noted that the company is a "proud partner with DHL in this innovative and market-leading initiative."

"As a responsible business, we have a global commitment to reduce our environmental impact and associated greenhouse gas emissions — collaborating with the right partners in our value chain makes an important contribution as we strive to meet our Science-Based Targets by 2030," Elliot said.

"We wish the DHL team the very best as they raise awareness about GoGreen Plus and hope that more organizations support this initiative to build momentum behind it and collectively help to increase the pace of positive change," he added.

The DHL Group is committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and is investing a total of €7 billion in carbon emissions reduction initiatives.

With approximately 90% of its carbon footprint derived from the air network, viable and sustainable air transport solutions are important for creating cleaner and greener logistics operations.

DHL noted that this includes two of the largest ever deals with bp and Neste, who will supply DHL with more than 800 million litres of sustainable aviation fuel until 2026.

This contributes to the interim target of using 30% SAF for all air transport by 2030. Equally, DHL Express has also partnered with Eviation, which will deliver up to 12 electric cargo planes from 2027 onwards.