Gebr. Heinemann shows its commitment to sustainability for the first time in Travel Retail: in its shops at the German airports of Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg and in the Heinemann webshop, the Travel Retailer launched the concept “future friendly: Great for you. Better for the planet.” at the beginning of November.
With this concept Heinemann draws the travellers’ attention to future-friendly products within its assortment. It targets both the people who already shop consciously and those whose interest in sustainable consumption could be awakened in this way.
“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,” says Dr. Dirk Schneider, Chief Commercial Officer at Gebr. Heinemann.
Focus on four criteria for environmentally friendly materials and packaging
With the “future friendly” concept, Gebr. Heinemann emphasises its sustainable focus and positions itself as a pioneer in international Travel Retail: amazing products – “Great for you” – should also be ecologically justifiable, more than other products – “Better for the planet”.
In the initial phase, Gebr. Heinemann 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 articles in particular. The packaging and materials of the goods that Gebr. Heinemann labels as “future friendly” must fulfil at least one of the four attributes “recyclable”, “recycled”, “refillable” and “plastic-free”.
“Our claim is to be honest and transparent with the travellers. 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,” says Britta Hoffmann, Director Purchasing Perfume & Cosmetics at Gebr. Heinemann.
“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.”
Sustainable product portfolio is one of the four sustainability goals by 2030
Gebr. Heinemann will continuously enrich its product range with future-friendly products. This is because one of the four sustainability goals the company pursues within this decade is the following: “By 2030, we will achieve more than half of our 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”. The company thus promotes the global development goals of the “United Nations Global Compact”, of which it has been a member since 2018.
Survey among Travel Retail shoppers: guidance for further sustainable orientation
With the concept “future friendly: Great for you. Better for the planet.”, Gebr. Heinemann emphasises that the company is already in the process of implementing its sustainability goals. On the journey to more sustainability, it attaches great importance to taking the shoppers in Travel Retail along with it. The launch of the new concept is therefore accompanied by a survey in which all travellers can participate.
“With our survey, we want to analyse how and to what extent we catch the attention of travellers 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,” says Sarah Rughöft, Senior Strategy Manager Purchasing at Gebr. Heinemann.
“In Travel Retail, we are a pioneer with our concept, and through the travellers 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 airport as well as in the Heinemann Duty Free webshop until the end of January 2022.
Since the beginning of November, Gebr. Heinemann has also underlined its sustainable orientation with another aspect: the Travel Retailer now ships orders from the Heinemann webshop climate 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.
