ASOS achieves 30% reduction in operational carbon emissions per order

ASOS has achieved a 30% reduction in operational carbon emissions per order since 2015/16 through its Carbon 2020 strategy, which was launched in 2015 and comes to a close this year.

The online fashion destination for twenty-something consumers revealed the results in its annual Carbon Report, which shows performance highlights including three years of consecutive reductions in carbon emissions per order and an 18% reduction in customer delivery emissions in the 2018/19 financial year, principally due to the opening of a new fulfilment centre in Atlanta, USA.

During the three years of Carbon 2020 (which ran from FY16 to FY19), ASOS grew from a £1.44bn-revenue business with 12.4m active customers, to a £2.73bn business with 20.3m active customers, resulting in an increase in total emissions.

However, as a result of its Carbon 2020 strategy – which prioritised increasing energy efficiency, reducing delivery and packaging emissions, and increasing ASOS’ use of renewable energy – emissions fell on a per-order basis.

In a foreword to the report, ASOS CEO Nick Beighton said: “In 2015, I signed off a new carbon strategy, ‘Carbon 2020,’ which defined how ASOS, through the delivery of six big ambitions, planned to meet its goal to reduce carbon intensity – grams of carbon dioxide per customer order – every year until 2020.

“Those ambitions focussed on reducing emissions relating to our customer deliveries and returns, order packaging, energy efficiency, reducing energy consumption, and switching to renewable energy sources.

“They were broad aims that helped us to define and focus our work on short-term goals. Five years on from the launch of Carbon 2020, we’re incredibly proud to have achieved everything we set out to – with a landmark reduction in carbon intensity per customer order of a staggering 30% since 2015, and consecutive reductions delivered every year since the strategy launched.”

The company has said it would outline new targets later this year.