Many Posts are beginning to track CO2 emissions associated with the power required to run their facilities and the emissions from the transportation of the mail to the consumers. Based on these data, we found that the distribution of letter mail by the Posts generates, on average, about 20 grams of CO2 per letter delivered. In addition, a survey of more than a dozen studies shows that the indicative range of CO2 emissions associated with the upstream mail piece creation process is about 0.9 – 1.3 grams of CO2 per gram of paper. The US Postal Service is planning an upcoming Life Cycle Inventory which will shed significant light and introduce new data on the carbon footprint of mail. In addition, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) is planning a survey of 191 countries on their use of postal facilities and vehicles. Americans generate about 40% of the total US CO2 emissions through power used to operate their homes and fuel for transportation activities. The carbon footprint of many household activities individually dwarfs the CO2 emissions associated with the amount of mail received by the average American in a full year. Because paper and electronic communications are intertwined in various stages of letter mail’s life cycle, an attempt to eliminate mail and substitute electronic communications represents a redistribution of the total carbon footprint, rather than its elimination. At the very least, several factors and statistics argue against the simplistic notion that physical mail
