uShip Takes Home Austin Business Environment Award

At last night's 2011 Greater Austin Business Awards dinner, uShip took home top honors in the Environment category (medium sized businesses) for both its external and internal stance on sustainability. 

The Austin Chamber of Commerces annually recognizes small, medium and large businesses that in shine in six categories, including Environment, Community Relations, Customer Service, Health and Wellness, Innovative Practices and Technology.  uShip was originally put on a shortlist with six other companies and ultimately took home the glassy goblet of green goodness. 

On hand from uShip to receive the award were CEO Matt Chasen, VP Strategy & Operations  Jay Manickam, VP, Development Nick Parker and Marketing Associate Collin Bass.

To customers, uShip offers an inherently green business model that creates a new, more efficient paradigm in the transport industry by eliminating unnecessary carbon emissions created by the road transport and freight industries.  Because wasted space in trucks is a common problem, uShip helps make those return trips more efficient and profitable for transporters and more cost effective for consumers. 

The uShip model creates a new consumer-to-consumer market segment where customers can transact carbon-free. Working with partners such as Terrapass, MyClimate.org and CO2Neutral, uShip offers both transporters and customers the opportunity to offset the carbon emissions caused by their delivery. Further, shipments in Continental Europe are 100% carbon-neutral.

As a result of the carbon offset program, over 10,000 shipping customers offset 742 tons of carbon in 2010, representing 10 million miles offset in transit— equal to 500 trips around the earth.

The drive toward sustainability also lives inside of uShip and its employees.  From organic on-site lunches and a biodeisel-powered charity vehicle to 100% offsetting of internal operations and on-site recycling, green behavior is and will always be a part of uShip’s culture as a workplace.  

To see the breadth of uShip's sustainability stance, check out our Road to Green Transport infographic below: