Belgian post expands sustainable deliveries to all of Leuven

In April 2022, the Belgian postal service, 'bpost' installed its “Leuven Ecozone”, covering about half of the city population at that time. Now, the service has been expanded to all territories in the city of Leuven, servicing a total of 103,000 inhabitants, up from 58,000.

In the Leuven Ecozone, deliveries of parcels, letters and newspapers are completed sustainably, with zero emissions associated with them. The expanded zone with see mail delivered sustainably by 65 electric vehicles and 12 electric bicycles across the city.

Deliveries are also supported by more than 50 pick-up points, and the City of Leuven and bpost are investigating the feasibility of further new parcel locker locations in suburbs to coincide with this extension. The introduction of the Ecozone in 2022 saw a 6% decrease in the number of home deliveries taking place, and today this figure is 9% lower. It is still decreasing according to bpost, thanks to a quarter of all parcels getting delivered to pick-up points instead. 

Jon Donvil, CEO of bpost Belgium, stated: “Sustainable urban logistics is an important driver of accessibility and quality of life in cities. That’s why bpost is investing heavily in zero-emission mail deliveries and a dense network of pickup points. That’s because our Ecozones, which depend on a dense network of pickup points and zero-emission deliveries, allow us to substantially reduce the ecological impact of our activities. What began as a pilot project in 2020 has grown into one of our most impressive achievements on our way to net-zero emissions by 2040.”

In total, bpost is running Ecozone models in 15 cities covering 36 postcode areas.