Delivering sustainable logistics in 2026. By Barley Laing, UK Managing Director at Melissa

A commitment by those in logistics and transportation to environmentally friendly practices is critical, not only with climate change accelerating, but also big targets to meet over the coming years in the race to Net Zero. 

Therefore, it’s not surprising that logistics businesses are focused on actively reducing their carbon footprint, while optimizing delivery efficiency and minimizing waste to create more environmentally friendly supply chains that also save money. Steps being taken include decarbonizing transport, using renewables and AI to speed up processes. 

Yet, despite this push for greener logistics, challenges such as failed deliveries, inefficient routing, and excessive packaging waste are still not being effectively overcome, leading to missed targets when it comes to sustainability, and increased costs. 

Incorrect customer addresses hinder sustainability efforts 

These issues are largely caused by having inaccurate customer addresses, which is important when around 20 percent of addresses entered online contain errors. Also, customer data lacking regular intervention degrades by two percent each month, meaning around 25 percent of customer data on databases will become inaccurate over the course of a year as people move home, get divorced and pass away. 

Address verification is key 

A vital way to solve this is to undertake address verification to ensure accurate deliveries, first time. Doing so helps to avoid costly failed deliveries, which are not only damaging to the environment, but financially; and are caused by incorrect or incomplete addresses, leading to return to sender and redelivery. 

Address verification supports optimized routing, which leads to reduced miles driven per delivery, with lower fuel consumption and emissions, along with faster, more accurate fulfilment. 

Furthermore, having the correct address reduces packaging waste from returned or undeliverable goods, which helps logistics companies and retailers to meet corporate sustainability goals.  

And finally, with address verification powering a faster, more accurate and environmentally friendly approach to logistics, customer experience and satisfaction levels will be high, encouraging repeat custom and increased revenue. 

Address lookup or autocomplete 

To deliver accurate address verification, logistics businesses and retailers should consider using an address lookup or autocomplete tool. They provide accurate address data in real-time by delivering a properly formatted, correct address when the user starts to input theirs. Employing such tools reduces the number of keystrokes required, by up to 81 percent, when typing an address. As a result, the entire onboarding process is speeded up, reducing the probability of the user not completing a purchase. Additionally, logistics businesses can use address verification technology to ensure the accuracy of addresses in batch across existing customer databases. 

Address verification is even more important when it comes to international logistics, because each country has its own address format which can cause logistics and fulfilment issues if the address is not correctly standardized and validated. Tools like address lookup can automatically convert international addresses into the correct format. 

Additionally, when implemented in batch across existing customer databases, address verification services can identify missing or incorrect address components globally, and correct them, and thereby ensure parcels are accurately labelled for faster, more reliable deliveries.  

Similar tools with a global reach are also available to help those in logistics obtain accurate telephone numbers and email addresses of recipients. Having access to correct phone numbers and email addresses is vital for customer communication prior, during and post-delivery, to ensure a seamless fulfilment process. 

Obtain global postal operator address data 

When sourcing address data make sure it matches data from postal operators, otherwise it’s not possible to guarantee any address is real, exists or is usable for fulfilment. This is why it’s important to never use Google Maps or a search engine to check the accuracy of addresses, as they don’t usually have access to this data. 

When sourcing a service that delivers correct address data, ensure it has information from postal operators. For example, in the US make sure they are Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) certified for the United States Postal Service (USPS). This ensures that correct, standardized addresses are obtained. 

Additionally, in the UK and US run the National Change of Address (NCOA) databases provided by the Royal Mail and USPS respectively, against held customer data, because they highlight those who have moved or passed away. Other countries have similar data sets. 

By having quick access to the new addresses of customers who have changed residence, couriers will be able to maintain a speedy fulfilment process that helps meet their sustainability targets, while ensuring a consistent positive customer experience. 

Geocoding is invaluable 

Once you have an accurate address this can be used to inform geocoding, which enhances last-mile delivery efficiency, further reducing delays in fulfilment and returns, and supporting efforts in sustainability. 

Geocoding technology provides latitude and longitude (rooftop level) coordinates, which is important when different properties may share an address, such as a plot of land or the street edge of a driveway – helping those in logistics to plan the most efficient delivery routes, while reducing carbon emissions. 

Geocoding is particularly important when it comes to global deliveries due to different conventions for address formats around the world. For instance, the UK uses city, street and house number, but in Japan buildings are referenced by the number of the block they belong to, and within each block buildings are numbered as well. Sometimes it’s done by order of construction, so the numbers don’t necessarily follow each other. 

In summary 

Because of the role it plays in improving delivery efficiency, minimizing waste and lowering carbon emissions, address verification must be at the heart of any sustainable logistics process in 2026. It’s more important than ever with looming challenging environmental targets and the growth in global warming, as well as increasing costs in the supply chain.   
www.melissa.com/uk  

Barley Laing is UK Managing Director at global data quality and ID verification business, Melissa. The company has 40 years of experience in providing UK and global data quality, address and identity verification services. Via its wide range of award-winning web services, SaaS, apps and on-premises software solutions, organizations can improve their customer data management, reduce fraud and comply with regulatory requirements. G2 consistently ranks Melissa as ‘leaders’ in data quality, including address verification, based on user feedback of the business’ products and services.