ATLANTA, GA — United Parcel Service decreased energy and water use as well as its greenhouse gas emissions last year in the U.S., prompting the company to set a new goal of 20 percent improvement in automotive fuel efficiency by 2020.

The environmental efforts are detailed in UPS's latest sustainability report, which was published Monday.

The higher standard for fuel efficiency is set against a baseline year of 2000 and if achieved would double the company's performance in the area thus far. From 2000 through 2009, automotive fuel efficiency increased 10 percent, UPS reported, noting that its drivers covered 77.3 million miles more in 2009 than they did in 2000 but consumed 3.2 million gallons less fuel.

The new target for automotive fuel efficiency dovetails an air fleet efficiency goal announced last year: After several years of steadily increasing efficiency in air operations, UPS said it would reduce the carbon emissions by its air fleet by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 2005.

The company's move to raise the bar for efficiency in its ground and air operations were among the highlights of a sustainability report that noted improvement in the majority of the company's environmental key performance indicators.

UPS started compiling sustainability reports in 2003 and this year's report, which covers operations in 2009, is the first to publish information on the company's global greenhouse gas emissions (including CO2, CH4, N2O and HFC) for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. (see chart, right). Previously, the company reported only on CO2 emissions.

The information also reflects more extensive data collection by UPS, which process mapped all transport-related activities that generate carbon across the company globally in reporting CO2 Scope 3 emissions this year. As noted in the chart below left, direct emissions fell almost 9 percent from 2008 to 2009 while indirect emissions almost tripled.

"As you see, we continue to evolve and we're working very hard at mapping out our impact," said Steven Leffin, UPS's corporate sustainability manager.

Leffin pointed to those efforts, UPS's heightened transparency in reporting and  its new goals for fuel and air fleet efficiency as some of the key accomplishments by the company in the past year.

Although revenue slipped from $51.5 billion in 2008 to $45.3 billion in 2009 as the recession continued, UPS remained the world's largest package delivery company and handled 3.8 billion packages in 2009. The U.S. domestic package operation, the company's largest business segment, accounted for 62 percent of the revenue and showed improvement in energy efficiency as well as emissions when compared to parcels handled. When measured against revenue, however, energy consumption and emissions rose in 2009.

Energy consumption was 3.5 percent lower per 1,000 packages and rose 3.6 percent per dollar of revenue. CO2e emissions declined 3.1 percent per 1,000 packages and increased 3.8 percent per dollar of revenue, the company reported.

Next Page: UPS's environmental progress by the numbers.