Success Story: Hermes
What’s up in Google Cloud? Next ’22 Special
19. October 2022
Success Story: Hermes
Hermes delivers greener packages from Google Cloud
Takeaways:
- Wabion – Part of Accenture, together with Hermes Germany, has developed a data analytics solution for calculating CO2e emissions per parcel delivery.
- The solution complies with the CO2e reporting standards of the logistics industry.
- Hermes Germany can break new ground in determining and evaluating measures to reduce CO2e.
With a focus on domestic parcel delivery, Hermes Germany is one of the leading logistics service providers in Germany and a partner to numerous online shops and multi-channel retailers at home and abroad. In total, around 6,000 employees and over 10,500 delivery people work for the company every day. Hermes Germany is part of the Otto Group, employs people from 95 nations and is committed to diversity and sustainability.
When it comes to sustainability, climate protection and the reduction of CO2e emissions play a particularly important role for the logistics service provider. In order to live up to this claim in the long term and to make its contribution measurable, Hermes Germany is taking an innovative approach and using Google Cloud to calculate the CO2e footprint of parcel deliveries. Wabion – Part of Accenture supported the company in setting up the new solution, which also forms the basis for a new CO2e reporting.
As a leading Public Cloud provider, Google Cloud covers everything from databases to predictive analytics to ensure that you get the most out of your business data. The individual products are easy to combine. Wabion has, for example, developed a data analytics platform for AXA — Switzerland’s leading insurance provider — which combines Cloud Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, Dataflow and BigQuery.
Increasing interest from various stakeholders
In addition to the self-imposed ambitions in terms of sustainability, Hermes Germany, as part of the Otto Group, must have a CO2e reporting that meets the information needs of various stakeholder groups and also meets the increasing (mandatory) demands for data transparency in climate protection. Since the previous Excel-based approach could no longer reflect the complexity of a modern CO2e management, Wabion – Part of Accenture was trusted to develop a new solution. There were two main goals:
- The rapid setup of a modern CO2e reporting based on Google Cloud products. The new data analytics solution should enable a reliable calculation of CO2e emissions per parcel delivery.
- The use of the data that goes beyond pure reporting and meets the information needs of various stakeholders
As an international logistics service provider, Hermes Germany wants to meet the steadily increasing interest of various internal and external stakeholders with a modern CO2e reporting. That’s why Wabion – Part of Accenture, as a leading Google Cloud Partner, received the order in summer 2021 to develop a cloud-based data analytics solution.
Carbon accounting in the greenest cloud
No company uses more renewable energy than Google. Since 2017, Google has been buying more renewable energy than the global Google infrastructure consumes – by 2030 Google will operate completely CO2-free. Google Cloud also provides leading technologies to help partners and customers achieve their own sustainability goals. For the development of the new Hermes Carbon Accounting, the experts from Wabion – Part of Accenture not only used their experience in the customer-specific use of Google Cloud solutions, but also contributed their expertise in setting up a solid architecture in Google Cloud.
BigQuery as a serverless and cost-efficient data warehouse is a central pillar for Hermes Carbon Accounting. For the flexibly expandable integration of different data sources, Wabion – Part of Accenture first developed a solid architecture for the Hermes-specific Google Cloud environment. This solid foundation enables the use of the data in BigQuery with Google Cloud products such as Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, Dataflow etc. as well as the integration of other services such as Google Maps via APIs. Google Looker Studio easily integrates with BigQuery and offers additional reporting options.
On this basis, the experts from Wabion – Part of Accenture developed a data analytics solution for Hermes Germany that combines various Google Cloud products and enables the calculation of so-called CO2e emissions according to the GLEC framework. This reporting guide for the logistics sector, which is in line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the UN Global Green Freight Action Plan and CDP Reporting (Carbon Disclosure Project), uses CO2 equivalents (CO2e) for the calculation of emissions and includes both direct and indirect CO2e emissions (Scope 1, 2, 3) . This makes different types of transport comparable.
An innovative solution for the future
Together with Hermes Germany, Wabion – Part of Accenture has developed an innovative and future-proof data analytics solution for calculating the CO2e footprint per parcel delivery and for the new CO2e reporting. This provides Hermes Germany with a wide range of tools to set new standards in the sustainability of the logistics industry:
- A new CO2e reporting with specific indicators for the various information needs of various stakeholders.
- A precise calculation of reduction potentials for the assessment and tracking of reduction measures.
- A solid assessment of projects and investments for CO2e management.
- New dimensions for comprehensive CO2e analyses.
Hermes Germany has been working on a sustainable future for several years. The company is expanding the use of alternative means of transport such as e-vans and cargo bikes as well as the possibilities of alternative delivery options such as the Hermes ParcelShop. The new data analytics solution for CO2e calculation is a reliable companion that, thanks to constant improvement by the experts from Wabion – Part of Accenture and the increased use of AI/ML, will ensure a lot of progress in terms of sustainability.
Learn more about “Green Delivery Hamburg” as a great example how Hermes Germany is working hard to deliver emissions-free parcels.
Lena Pinkerneil, IT Product Owner Carbon Accounting of Hermes Germany, at the Accenture Cloud Forum 2022, where she presented the solution developed by Hermes Germany and Wabion – Part of Accenture.