OTTO is going carbon-neutral: new climate goals for 2030

Protecting the climate and the environment are more than just on-trend issues for us. We were already working on group-wide guidelines for doing business sustainably long before Fridays for Future was conceived. These guidelines were published in 2012 as a Corporate Responsibility Strategy for all the companies of the Otto Group. The principal aim of doing this was to make the origin of the products as transparent as possible for our customers.

The primary challenge of climate protection is still to reduce CO2 emissions. To this end, we have been steadily transforming our processes since 2006: by improving energy efficiency in buildings and refining our procurement logistics and delivery processes, by 2020 we had already reduced our CO2 emissions by more than half compared with 2006. We are committed to fundamental change, especially when it comes to logistics. Instead of being shipped by air, our licensed and own-brand products are increasingly arriving by sea or rail. We have been able to more than halve the amount of cargo transported by air since 2012, for example, and reduce CO2 emissions in our logistics by around 68 per cent when adjusted for turnover.

But that is far from the end of the story. We continue to challenge ourselves to become even more sustainable, even greener and even more eco-friendly. This is why OTTO is aiming to become carbon-neutral by 2030. We have laid out a seven-point approach detailing how we will achieve this ambitious goal:

Our climate goals for the next 10 years

• OTTO is going carbon-neutral: We aim to minimise our emissions as much as possible by reducing and avoiding CO2 and by switching to renewable energy sources. Only once the minimum level has been reached will we offset our remaining low CO2 emissions and thus reduce them to zero.
• Reduce CO2 emissions by cutting down on air freight: Logistics is one of the biggest drivers of our CO2 emissions. That is why we intend to transport our products less by air and more by ship or rail in the future. Planning procurement in advance will help to achieve this goal.
• Greater e-mobility to improve eco-friendliness: Our shipping partner Hermes is increasingly transitioning to eco-friendly modes of transport. This also includes retrofitting their fleet of vehicles for greater e-mobility.
• Reduce business trips and journeys by plane: We were making increasing use of virtual meetings even before the coronavirus pandemic struck. This has allowed us to cut down significantly on the number of business trips we make. Should a face-to-face meeting be necessary, in future we will use either eco-friendly vehicles or the train instead of flying.
• Reduce CO2 emissions on our campus: In the coming years, we will build a new central office on our campus according to the highest sustainable standards and do much more besides. Our existing buildings also already draw on renewable energy. By 2025, 100% of the electricity that OTTO uses will be eco-friendly.
• Green digitisation: As an online retailer, we use servers, clouds and data centres to perform our daily activities. We will also ensure that these outsourced services use eco-friendly electricity in future.
• Offsetting through climate protection projects: Only if CO2 emissions are still unavoidable even after all these efforts will we offset our emissions by supporting state-of-the-art climate protection projects. In recent years, for example, we worked with the Bergwald Project on Amrum to plant more than 60,000 trees.

What have we achieved so far?

• Cotton made in Africa: Our aim is to ensure that a responsible approach to natural resources is adopted in the manufacture of our products. This is why we use sustainable cotton grown by smallholders who are part of our "Cotton made in Africa" initiative for our clothing and furniture. To date, 95 per cent of our cotton items already come from this project; by the end of the year, this figure is set to reach 100 per cent.
• FSC Timber: We also ensure that the timber we use is FSC-certified, which confirms that a forest has been responsibly managed. Our aim is to procure only FSC timber for our entire furniture range and our cardboard boxes by 2025. We are also planting new trees again: we have been supporting the Bergwald Project, which aims to preserve and reforest the Amrum Island forest, since 2013. This year, we reached our target and planted more than 60,000 new trees. (Find out more about the Bergwald Project here)
• Wildplastic and RePack: When it comes to packaging, we like trying out new things, for example we use shipping bags made from 80 per cent recycled plastic for suitable products. These new shipping bags bearing the Blue Angel seal are the result of a cooperation with Wildplastic. We also use RePack bags for shipping our products, which are made of stronger material and can be reused up to 20 times.
• Social Responsibility: In addition to acting responsibly towards the environment, we also take social responsibility for the production of our products around the world. Fair working conditions such as fair wages, a ban on child and forced labour and occupational health and safety are standard for us. We are also committed to protecting endangered species and animals, have high chemical requirements of our products and do not allow the sale of real fur or sandblading.
• OTTO Products: The idea behind sustainable products is to keep them in circulation for as long as possible. Our OTTO products are designed in such a way that they will please our customers for many years, will last for a long time and can be easily combined. And if you run out of space in your wardrobe, our "Make room with heart" initiative will give you the motivation you need. In 2014, we started sorting out old clothes and giving them a second life as upcycled products.

If you would like to find out more about why we are so passionate about sustainability, please visit otto.de or read our sustainability blog re:BLOG.