Gebr Heinemann launches bold sustainability concept
Gebr Heinemann’s sustainability concept initially focuses on products with sustainable packaging and materials
Gebr Heinemann has introduced a new sustainability concept in its shops at the German airports of Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg and in the Heinemann webshop.
The concept – taglined “future friendly: Great for you. Better for the planet.” – was launched at the beginning of November and aims to draw travelers’ attention to future-friendly products within its assortment.
Explaining the concept, Dr Dirk Schneider, Chief Commercial Officer at Gebr Heinemann, said: “We are convinced that our industry succeeds in both: being commercially successful and at the same time making a social and ecological contribution. With our new future-friendly concept, we take a further step towards more sustainability for shoppers in travel retail.”
Initially, the company focuses on products with sustainable packaging and materials. In order to filter these out across all product groups, the company asked the brands about their contribution to sustainability in general and about the sustainability of their products in particular. The packaging and materials of the merchandise that Gebr Heinemann labels as future friendly must fulfil at least one of the four attributes “recyclable”, “recycled”, “refillable” and “plastic-free”.
Britta Hoffmann, Director Purchasing Perfume & Cosmetics at Gebr Heinemann, said: “Our claim is to be honest and transparent with the travelers. This also includes being able to prove the sustainability level of a product. To do this, we need measurable criteria and reliable data, which we check carefully.
“While we focused on sustainable packaging and materials to begin with, we will add further sustainability components to our future-friendly standard as we proceed – first and foremost fair production and environmentally friendly ingredients.”
Four sustainability goals by 2030
Gebr Heinemann will continuously add future-friendly products to its range because, by 2030, the company aims to achieve more than half of its turnover through sustainable products and by working with responsible suppliers.
In September, Gebr Heinemann published its sustainable development goals in the third progress report for the United Nations Global Compact. It has been a member of the UN initiative since 2018.
Travel retail shopper survey
The launch of the new concept is accompanied by a survey in which all travelers can participate viahttps://www.heinemann-shop.com/en/global/sustainability.
Sarah Rughöft, Senior Strategy Manager Purchasing at Gebr Heinemann, said: “With our survey, we want to analyze how and to what extent we catch the attention of travelers with ‘future friendly: Great for you. Better for the planet.’. We want to find out whether they can understand that the concept is about sustainability – and specifically about environmentally friendly product packaging – and how much value they place on environmentally friendly packaging and materials.
“In travel retail, we are a pioneer with our concept, and through the travelers we want to learn which sustainability criteria are particularly important to them.”
The concept “future friendly: Great for you. Better for the planet.” will run at Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg airports as well as in the Heinemann Duty Free webshop until the end of January 2022.
Since the beginning of November, Gebr Heinemann now ships orders from the Heinemann webshop carbon-neutrally with DHL GoGreen. With this shipping option, DHL compensates CO2 emissions caused by the delivery by investing in climate protection projects around the globe.
.jpg?&resize.width=322&resize.height=483)
