Grand & Toy offers 48-hour delivery as sustainable option for Canadian businesses

Grand & Toy is a large Canadian based office supply company, very similar to Staples.  In 2008, Grand & Toy delivered 8.4 million orders to more than 200,000 customers.  Now that’s a lot of overnight deliveries!  In fact, 4500 tonnes CO2-e was emitted for the 2008 delivery, whcih is equivalent to flying from Vancovuer to Toronto 4500 times a year!  Earlier in 2009, Grand & Toy started a pilot program called “48 Hour Delivery”.  Essentially, recommending their customers to choose the 2-day delivery option, Grand & Toy is able to optimize logistics issue and be more (energy and carbon) efficient in making deliveries.  During the pilot project, Grand & Toy found that 50% of the customers would choose the 48 hour delivery option as an eco alternative.  Grand & Toy is now rolling out this program nation wide!  Personally, I am a little skpetical about the carbon savings that can be acheived, but I would love to be proven wrong and see some data in their carbon footprint for 2009!