University of Hull and iParcelBox develop online tool to help deliveries go green
The University of Hull’s Aura Innovation Centre has joined forces with Hull-based company iParcelBox to develop a carbon footprint tool for people shopping online.
The initiative started when iParcelBox wanted to understand exactly how green its product was.
The company provides a drop box, which the customer monitors and controls from their smartphone to securely receive parcels when they’re not home or can’t get to the door.
Paul Needler, iParcelBox’s CEO, felt that the Aura Innovation Centre (AIC) could help support small businesses to accelerate their low carbon innovations into commercialisation, so got in touch to see whether his firm’s idea was eligible for support and funding.
The AIC matched iParcelBox up with the University of Hull Business School’s logistics and supply chain expert Dr Sushma Kumari, who leads a masters course in the subject.
Dave Dawson, Innovation Manager at the AIC, says: “The University of Hull has world class expertise in logistics, so when Paul got in touch I knew there’d be academics who’d love to get their hands on such an innovative and fascinating project.”
“We were able to secure funding for the project, which paid for the researchers’ time, and the result has been this fantastic online tool.”
“Given the continued growth of online shopping, the potential for benefits to lowering emissions on deliveries could be a big contribution to meeting net zero targets.”
Needler comments: “It’s great that consumers will finally have access to a simple tool they can use to make informed decisions about how to minimise the emissions associated with parcel deliveries, backed up with EU funded academic research.”
“For a large proportion of the population where collection involves either a dedicated vehicle journey or an extra leg to an existing trip, they may be surprised to find that at-home delivery to a secure location such as iParcelBox could be the greenest option.”
