Zero-carbon takeaway? Spanish delivery start-up Glovo targets greener future

(Reuters, 22 Jun 2020) Barcelona-based company will buy carbon credits via California-based platform Pachama.

On-demand delivery service Glovo, whose riders with distinctive yellow bags have continued to carry meals, medicine and other goods to city residents under lockdown, said on Monday it will offset all its carbon emissions by the end of 2021.

The Barcelona-based company runs an app that lets its users in 22 countries buy, collect or send any product in the same city within an hour, with takeaway food accounting for about 70% of deliveries.

In five years, the firm has expanded operations to about 300 cities, mainly in southern and eastern Europe, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. It employs more than 51,000 freelance couriers, who mainly use bicycles or motorbikes for deliveries.

Glovo said it will buy an initial 30,000 carbon credits - each representing one tonne of planet-warming carbon dioxide - from a forest conservation project in Peru, via California-based platform Pachama, which also works with Microsoft Corp.

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Reuters, 22 Jun 2020: Zero-carbon takeaway? Spanish delivery start-up Glovo targets greener future