U.S. Postal Service named climate action champion

The California Climate Action Registry has awarded the US Postal Service its Climate Action Champion award.

According to a Postal Service press release, the CCAR award recognizes the company's "role in engaging and shaping public response to climate change and for substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Reducing those emissions is no small feat. The Postal Service has one of the largest vehicle fleets of any company in the US -- about 195,000 delivery vehicles. It plans to replace about 90% of them with vehicles not powered by petroleum.

Getting away from petroleum makes economic sense. When you have 195,000 fuel tanks that need to be topped off regularly, minute price hikes have major effects on your bottom line. The Postal Service has to spend an extra $8 million every time the price of a gallon of fuel rises by one cent.

The award from the CCAR is one of 70 major environmental awards the company has won.