DHL has pledged to be a greener and cleaner company by launching a carbon calculator that will forecast all transport-related emissions for almost all transport methods and shipment sizes.

The calculated estimate will be free to all customers and is conducted online, basing its figures on ‘intelligent algorithms’.

Vice President, Green Strategy and Customer Intelligence at DHL Global Forwarding, Kathrin Brost, said that the calculator will offer ‘real’ logistics data, whereas many previous tools have only been able to provide a rough guide.

Included in the data is the route to the nearest harbour or airport, the primary leg by sea or air and the ‘last mile’ which refers to the final journey in the country of destination.

In order to document the emissions levels, the DHL Carbon Calculator will use data from the ‘carbon accounting and control department’ at DHL.

The logistics giant has said that the methodology used by the Carbon Calculator is reflective of the standards recognised by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the European Standard EN 16258 along with the Global Logistics Emissions Council’s guidelines.

Vice President of the Deutsche Post DHL Group, Katharina Tomoff, said that the intelligent carbon calculator will enable customers to find out in advance of shipment the precise impact on the environment that their shipment will have, without having to pay for it.

By entering the locations of receivers and senders, shippers are able to calculate emissions, along with the volume and weight of a shipment.

The next phase of the calculator is a selection of their preferred transport method and based on the entries made, the carbon calculator will then recommend a shipping route, which can also be modified by the user.

When all this data is put into the calculator, it then produces a precise figure of CO2 emissions that will be generated from the delivery.