Introducing Our New Carbon Offset API
by Travis Edwards
We're incredibly excited about our newest API, the Carbon Offset API. The API empowers shippers to take action on the carbon emissions that result from parcel delivery. In a nutshell, the API calculates the carbon emissions from a shipment's parcel delivery and displays the cost to offset them. Shippers can then purchase carbon offsets when purchasing a label to neutralize the emissions from parcel delivery. And they can do so in a cost-effective and timely manner.
Under the hood
On any given shipment, the API calculates carbon emissions using a variety of inputs, including distance traveled, package weight, carrier service, and more. The carbon emissions and cost to offset them are displayed directly within our rating API, so customers do not need to add another API call to their operational flow. The API is highly performant, so customers can expect minimal impact on response times when using the API.
Customers can elect to purchase carbon offsets when purchasing a label, thereby offsetting the carbon emissions that result from the parcel delivery. When customers buy carbon offsets, the funds are distributed across EasyPost's carbon offset project portfolio.
Our carbon offset project portfolio
We have selected a variety of carbon reduction technologies and project types to fund a diverse portfolio of strategies. However, we were keen to validate that every carbon offset project follows the most up-to-date and trusted carbon reduction standards. Every project we contribute to is verified by one of the following modern standards: The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Climate Action Reserve (CAR), BCarbon Standard, and puro.earth. You can read more about all of the projects in our portfolio.
How customers are planning to use it
The API is free to leverage and designed to be flexible so customers can elect to purchase carbon offsets on all or just a subset of their shipments. With this flexibility, we see two major use cases arise:
Use case 1: Add a carbon neutral shipping option for your customers to select
This use case benefits customers looking to enhance their shipping offering by adding an eco-friendly delivery option without necessarily increasing their shipping budget. In this case, customers can pass on the costs to their customers that are happy to pay a small fee to reduce their carbon footprint. The API plugs into checkout pages seamlessly for online brands. Additionally, this is a great add-on for online platforms that support many customers, some of whom are environmentally conscious.
Use case 2: Purchase carbon offsets for your shipments
This use case is a good fit for EasyPost customers willing to pay to offset the carbon emissions from their parcel delivery and can offer a more marketable message than the first use case. Customers can market all deliveries as carbon neutral and display them across storefronts, webpages, within the product application, and more. Research has shown that environmentally friendly brands have higher customer acquisition, customer retention, and checkout page conversion rates. This explains why the green movement is well underway in ecommerce, with brands like BestBuy, FedEx, Amazon, Apple, Unilever, and more all having pledged to go fully carbon neutral prior to 2040.
Implementing is fast, free, and easy
Like the rest of our shipping APIs and features, this API is supported by all of our client library languages including C#, Go, Java, Node, PHP, Python, and Ruby. This should enable customers to implement the API into their shipping stack in minutes. As stated, there is no extra cost to use the API, so customers can implement and test the API as much as they need prior to purchasing offsets.
Interested?
Don't wait to get going; the API is live and can be found in our API documentation.
If you aren't a customer yet, sign up for EasyPost or talk to a Sales Rep and begin using the API in no time.