Gosselin, founded in 1930, has always supported innovation and technology in the moving business. During the last years, the company has pushed the sustainability agenda forward in its moving activities. It is Gosselin’s vision to lead the way to a connected, sustainable future both in moving and logistics. Teams at various levels of the company work hard to identify opportunities to make this a reality, and we’re not only talking about quick wins but also sensitive subjects such as company branding.

Let’s look at how Gosselin has already reformed its operations with the case study of a transferee relocating from a village 50 kilometers away from Bern, Switzerland, to New York, NY, USA. The shipment consists of 18 cubic meters via sea and 2 cubic meters via air transport. Well, you can scratch that last bit. Gosselin has gladly been assisting the trend of questioning whether air shipments are always needed since sea shipments have a much lower environmental impact, and therefore some of the RMCs and their clients prefer to remove air allowance from their relocation policies.

Survey tools

Gosselin has found more innovative solutions to reduce our impact on the planet while maintaining a traditional level of customer service. Firstly, the surveyor doesn’t need to be present in person. We have our G.U.E.S.T. (Gosselin User Enabled Survey Tool) tool allowing the surveyor and client to connect online, thus eliminating traveling two hours by car for a 20-minute appointment. Our software guides the transferee through the process at the time that suits them best. All they need is a smartphone and an internet connection.

Sustainable packaging

Secondly, our crews are bound to remove Gosselin-branded moving boxes when they do the packing, but on the other hand, Gosselin will put Notabrownbox in place. These are neutral moving boxes, made from recycled cardboard, that have better endurance and can last up to four moves. When they arrive at the destination, the local agent can reuse them after performing a quality check and removing all personal data from the previous move. A 20 cubic meters shipment, for example, would usually require around 70 boxes.

Weekly European Road Trips

Once the shipment arrives at our warehouse in Bern, it is loaded onto our weekly European Road Trips service to Deurne, Antwerp, in Belgium. Instead of booking commercial services outside of our control, we use this regular service with our swap bodies to cut costs and provide more security in means or arrival times and reduced handling. Because there are more shipments on one truck, we save the average consumption of fuel and thus reduce CO2 emissions per each cubic meter transported as some of the commercial providers use vans.

Sea groupage

In Antwerp, the shipment is booked onto one of our groupage containers to New York, along with other shipments. Since Gosselin covers most European countries, we consolidate these high volumes on our own at a central location and have a relatively high frequency of containers going to the USA, covering both East and West Coast. This way, our customer’s bookings are not put on hold to be loaded onto a vessel while high-volume customers are prioritized. Overall, groupage services optimize space resulting in a lower cost and carbon footprint compared to a direct FCL service.

Interbranch functionality

At the destination, our U.S. partner company consolidates the shipment and delivers it to the residence of our client. Sounds like smooth sailing? Wait, we can do better! In 2022, Gosselin introduced interbranch functionality, meaning that the Swiss team simply uploads all the documents and client communication into our software and assigns it to the groupage team. There’s no chain of emails with large attachments. The groupage team receives a simple notification that a new file was assigned to them, without delays and with carbon reductions as files are stored centrally in the cloud and no longer printed on paper or sent in emails.

Our continuous striving for innovation has not only lowered the carbon footprint but also transformed the way we work and created other efficiencies: 

Madeline Van Der Rhee, Benelux Manager, comments on Notabrownbox, which became operational end of last year: “We have taken the bold move and removed our logo from the moving boxes. If we want to send out a message that we truly want to make a difference in the world, then we need to include other members to make the entire moving industry more sustainable. That’s why we work with partners and talk to associations like IAM, FIDI, and OMNI to incorporate the reused boxes as the only acceptable standard. Seeing that become a reality is my BHAG!”

“We are constantly looking for ways to purchase and use packaging materials and tape in a more environmentally-friendly way. Gosselin has also invested in our people to take more care in the usage of both new and reused packaging material. Plastic packaging material is rarely in place and has already been replaced by paper blanket material in most places which has a lower carbon footprint,” adds Anja Brosthardt, Gosselin Belgium’s Operations Director. “The challenge is to find materials with the same quality for a similar price and to ensure our crew doesn’t need too much time for the packing with these alternatives.”

Ben Schmidt, Groupage Manager, has combined his own professional contacts with our overseas partner network resulting in groupage containers traveling frequently and filled to the brim with clients’ consignments. “Nowadays, we guarantee at least monthly sailings to Australia, India, Canada, the USA, the UAE, Hong Kong, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and Thailand. We are really busy and I am glad to have an experienced team behind me.”

“Gosselin has also created a new European Road Trips department which cuts the number of trucks on the road and reduces CO2 emissions along with costs for our clients. In order to eliminate unnecessary handling and individual truck trips, we have introduced weekly services between Belgium and the Netherlands, the UK, France, and Germany. We also have road trains cruising other European regions that save CO2 compared to a situation where multiple (and often old) vans were used for single trips. Additionally, we’re investigating rail groupage which will save on drivers’ time and remove traffic from the roads. Hopefully, the railways won’t become congested, too,” laughs Gert van Engelenburg, European Traffic and Supplier Manager.

“We’re assisting FIDI in creating an industry-wide carbon calculator that we will align Gosselin’s calculations with. By the end of this year, we want to have the calculation of carbon footprint automated and communicated to our client at the moment of quoting. It will help our customers to make informed choices. Carbon offsets are the last resort solution but we also have such a solution on our radar,” says Petr Procházka, ESG Specialist of Gosselin.

Lennert De Jong, Director of Operations, comments, “The beauty of our innovations lies in the fact that customer service isn’t diminished; it’s actually enhanced through appealing tools and interfaces like G.U.E.S.T. Our software automates numerous repetitive tasks, relieving our coordinators from the burden of holding all pending tasks in their heads.”

“Investing into G.U.E.S.T. has transformed the way we organize surveys with our transferees. It has given much greater flexibility to both the customer and the surveyor. The timing of the appointment is more much more constant, as the surveyor is not restricted by traffic problems. Furthermore, it has the added benefit of contributing towards the drive for more sustainable moving,” Iain Adams, Managing Director at Gosselin UK and France, adds.

Jessica Deutschmann, Commercial Director, concludes, “We surely observe that RMCs and their clients are more and more engaged in environmental sustainability and the reporting around it. That requires movers to engage with platforms providing a thorough sustainability rating. Furthermore, we are experiencing more collaboration and engagement when it comes to innovative solutions that we as a service provider can offer to reduce the Scope 3 emissions of RMCs and their clients. More reasonable and sustainable solutions for small shipments is the future, hence why our team is consulting regularly on whether air shipment allowances can be converted into consolidated shipments, especially within Europe.”