Our approach to sustainability
Sustainability and Environmental Management
Our People
- Team Health and Wellness programs
- Ensuring living wages for entry level roles
- Team leadership development with our own Outward Bound and Main Divide programs
- Tertiary scholarships for family of Mainfreight team members
Our Community
- Major sponsor of Duffy Books in Homes
- Sponsor Life Education Trust
- Sponsor Mainfreight Bairds Primary School
- Volunteering and community days organised by our local teams across the country
Our Place
- Major solar installations on sites across New Zealand, Australia and Europe totalling over 5,500 kWp
- Modern fleet (all <10 years old) predominantly Euro 5 and 6 vehicles
- Major infrastructure investment in rail capacity with rail sided sites across our network.
- Rain water capture and storage at all major sites
- Grey water recycling at all major sites for truck wash, sprinkler systems etc
- Repurposing waste like pallets (into furniture or stowage aids)
- Waste exchange agreements to redirect waste from landfill for shrink-wrap and polystyrene
- Hungry bins, on site composting and branch gardens
- Small vehicle fleet (team cars) moving towards hybrid and electric along with onsite charging stations
- High proportion of electric forklifts and material handling equipment
- Progressing trials and explorations of electric truck opportunities across all regions
Our Economy
- Youth work skills training programme
- Increasing rail capability and capacity to reduce road congestion and heavy traffic
- Developing our own inland container port to reduce inner-city congestion at Port of Auckland
Our operational programs and initiatives around sustainability
- Preparing our Annual Report with Reference to the GRI Standards. You can download our report from our Reports Library
- Verifying our GHG Emissions Inventory to ISO 14064-1: 2018 by Toitu Envirocare from 2018 to 2025, and to GHG Protocol by EY from 2026. You can see our previous emissions reports in our Reports Library
- Mainfreight are a Smart Freight Centre Member. We support and follow their framework to measuring supply chain emissions
- We continue to develop our GHG emissions reporting tools for customers. We can provide an accurate inventory of their supply chain emissions, from local deliveries through to international shipments
- Mainfreight have our own domestic emission factors in New Zealand, peer reviewed previously by Toitū Envirocare (2018-2025), and currently by EY (2026 onwards).
Mainfreight Sustainability Report 2025
Annual Report 2025
Mainfreight Sustainability Policy
UN Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all
Our Greenhouse Gas Emissions
We welcome the opportunity to present our global emissions inventories. Through our emissions reporting, Mainfreight continues to demonstrate best practice and reinforce its commitment to better understanding and improving its operational carbon emissions performance.
Our inventories cover Scope 1, Scope 2 and material Scope 3 emissions and are prepared using an operational control approach. It is our belief that if we can exercise reasonable influence over an emissions source then we must include it. As a result we incorporate emissions from vehicles operated by owner drivers and agents, rail providers, shipping lines and airlines that support our service offering to customers.
Mainfreight has been reporting independently verified greenhouse gas emissions since 2018, providing greater transparency and helping our customers better understand the environmental impact of their supply chains.
For full details and wider explanation of our emissions inventories, please refer to our Greenhouse Gas Inventory Reports below.
Sustainability and information technology
Reducing the environmental impact of IT infrastructure is important. Our data centres in New Zealand, Australia and the United States of America are as energy efficient as possible through initiatives including:- Minimising computer room space to minimise cooling requirements
- Installing efficient cooling systems
- Using virtualisation to reduce hardware required, - and heat generated – Mainfreight currently runs 48 major applications across only 12 physical servers
- Using hardware with variable energy management systems – running at full capacity only on an “as needed” basis
Future sustainability developments and leadership
Mainfreight is actively committed to sustainability and environmentally friendly practices. Mainfreight will develop partnerships in the wider community to promote socially responsible environmental practices and show leadership in managing the use of finite resources.
Mainfreight’s commitment to sustainability, safety, health and the environment has been, and continues to be, a fundamental element of our operating practices and success to date.