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As Germany’s largest online retailer for Fashion and Lifestyle, sustainable cotton is one of the central resources for OTTO. That is also why a sustainable production is important to us and we want to further expand the use of sustainable cotton. In the process, we primarily focus on cotton from the Cotton made in Africa initiative.

Our sustainability objective until 2020

In line with our CR strategy, we pursue the objective of converting the allotment of cotton required for the production of OTTO’s own range of products to 100 per cent sustainable cotton by the year 2020. In 2018, the percentage of sustainable cotton for our own product ranges amounted to 90 per cent.

Cotton made in Africa (CmiA)

Dr. Michael Otto’s “Cotton made in Africa” project, which he takes closely to heart, stands for sustainable cotton production and supports more than one million cotton farmers in Africa. Today, “Cotton made in Africa” is an initiative of the Aid by Trade Foundation, which helps people help themselves through trade.

The secret of Cotton made in Africa’s success is based on the principle “Help people help themselves”. The objective of the initiative is to sustainably improve the living conditions of smallholder African farmers. To do so, it does not rely on donations but organises an alliance of international textile companies, which purchase the sustainably produced cotton from the smallholder African farmers.

The companies pay a licensing fee for every textile, which receives the label of the initiative. Earnings from the licensing fees are reinvested in the project areas, so that the cotton farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa can benefit from working with the initiative by receiving training in environmentally friendly cotton cultivation methods, so-called Farmer Business Schools, measures to promote the position of women or projects in the village communities. Therefore, enabling them to achieve higher incomes on a long-term basis. Projects to strengthen women’s rights, education projects or sanitation programmes are implemented in the crop-producing countries

FSC® is a global association, which sets a standard for responsible forest management. A set of 10 standard principles and 56 criteria, which must be adhered to, apply worldwide, to receive the FSC® seal. With the certification of the FSC®, OTTO guarantees that all wood used comes from responsibly cultivated forests.

Our objective by 2025: 100 per cent FSC® for all of our own brands. Particularly in the case of the raw material wood, OTTO consequently assumes a distinct pioneering role, which makes it a leader in the market. Since the establishment of the FSC® system in 1993, OTTO began including FSC®-certified products in the product range and changing the offer accordingly.

Given that paper for the printing of catalogues and advertising material is still of high relevance to OTTO even after the end of the main catalogue, we set the objective of increasing the percentage of Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®)-certified paper for catalogues and advertising material to 50 per cent by 2018. We have achieved this objective. We are striving to achieve an increase to 60 per cent by 2020. We do not make any exceptions, no even for our daily work: Already 75 per cent of our printing and copying paper consists of recycled paper, the rest of the office paper is FSC®-certified. We cut our office paper requirements in half in the past two years. Trend: further reduction.

In addition to the use of FSC®-certified paper, we take other ecological aspects into consideration; such as reducing the catalogue formats or using recycled paper for instance. Furthermore, we solely use FSC®-certified materials for our boxes.

Special focus is placed on procurement and distribution in our climate protection strategy. Our ambitious objective: to reduce our CO2 emissions by 50 per cent by 2020 (compared to base year 2006).

We were already able to reduce our emissions by 48 per cent in 2018. At the same time, the greatest effect results from the minimisation of the amount of airfreight in the procurement processes. We will expand this reduction in the coming years using various measures: More and more, we are replacing the use of CO2-intensive airfreight for our transport method with ship transport. We are paying attention to an even more improved occupancy rate of the vehicles and a more modern, fuel-efficient vehicle fleet for deliveries to our customers.

In order to be able to absorb even more CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the future, it is extremely important to recultivate the degraded moorlands. We are working on this goal together with our partner Bergwaldprojekt e.V., an independent environmental protection organisation. OTTO supports a climate protection project to recultivate the moorlands in the Jasmund National Park on the island of Ruegen during routine promotional periods and in doing so, is making a significant contribution to maintaining the status of a national park.

Moorlands are very important to climate protection because they are unique spaces of species and habitat diversity for rare species, play a large role in water retention and are important carbon reservoirs. Although moorlands only cover 4 per cent of the land area in Germany and forests cover approximately 30 per cent, it is assumed that they store the same amount of CO2.

On the island of Amrum we are also succeeding in the renaturation of a forest together with the staff members of the Bergwald e.V. project. OTTO plants one tree on Amrum for each piece of FSC®-certified solid wood furniture purchased on otto.de. The tree population on Amrum was severely damaged by the storm “Christian” in 2013, which led to the forest being recultivated in a manner rich in species and structures during the past few years, so that it fulfils all ecological functions and offers a relaxing atmosphere to its visitors.

We want to ensure a socially acceptable production for OTTO in risk countries with our Social Programme. We are working on long-term compliance with social standards in the production process – also by consistently providing our suppliers with further training. Our social standards and rules regarding environmental protection, occupational safety and health are defined in a Code of Conduct. Whether at home or abroad: Our employees and partners can rely on binding rules and regulations. The code of conduct is binding for all suppliers and is an integral part of the contract. The Otto Group Code of Conduct formed in 1996 forms the basis for it. We have been using the internationally recognised amfori BSCI Code of Conduct since 2018, which is a binding and integral part of the business relationship with all suppliers.

Among other things, it is based on the core labour standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and relevant UN conventions as well as other relevant provisions. By using this industry solution, we support the goal of a continuous improvement of working conditions in the supply chain. Moreover, we have broadly expanded our sustainable minimum requirements in the so-called Supplier Declaration on Sustainability. In addition to the amfori BSCI Code of Conduct, this, among other things, includes requirements in regard to species conservation and animal protection, transparency in the supply chain, chemical product requirements and sustainable materials and is an obligatory component of the contract for all suppliers.

All factories, which produce for our own brands in risk countries, must have valid, accepted social standards, for example the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI). Compliance with these requirements is checked on a regular basis in the production facilities of our business partners. The BSCI, which includes more than 1,500 companies worldwide, was co-founded by the Otto Group in the year 2004. The objective of the BSCI is the continuous improvement of the working conditions in the international chain of economic added value.

With the Capacity Building Programme “EMPact” of the Otto Group, we want to go beyond our social requirements and further develop significant and strategic suppliers by means of specific qualifications. The social qualification is designed as a personal training programme, which is conducted by local instructors and takes place over a period of eight months. The factories participate in all-day workshops, homework and on-site visits. The programme teaches the participants methods to identify social compliance problems and they are taught to tackle these and implement solutions. Furthermore, topic-oriented workshops are conducted, which are based on the challenges of the participants in the area of social compliance. In 2018, our qualification programmes were conducted in primary procurement countries China, Turkey and India.

Plastics versus paper: Is it really that simple? OTTO uses padded envelopes, which are made of 80 per cent recycled plastics and can then be returned to the recycling loop. Here, the collaboration between companies and customers is decisive. If you dispose of the padded envelope in a correct way, OTTO ensures that plastics used are brought to recycling centres, plastics remain in the loop. This enables a “next life” for the plastics used - again and again and the plastics are maintained in the loop.

By using recycled materials, OTTO saves 150 tons of plastics from so-called primary sources, i.e. crude oil, every year. There is a wide range of various models in the e-commerce sector, many rely on strong paper bags here. Many still consider paper to be the “sustainable” alternative. Indeed, paper has a better reputation but a great amount of energy is required for its production – it costs approximately as much energy to produce a ton of paper from fresh fibres as for the production of a ton of primary steel. This was determined by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

Another problem: The reusability of paper bags. The models made of recycled paper withstand the requirements when shopping for food in the supermarket. However, for shipments in e-commerce, it must be ensured that these are water-repellent and tearproof, to protect the goods inside. OTTO uses cardboard boxes for larger orders. Here, we avoid the use of paper at many points; e.g. we reduced the packing material to a minimum. The essential aspect is recycling. Our boxes are made of FSC-certified, recycled cardboard and our padded envelopes are made of recycled plastics.

In the near future, return systems will be tested, which enable keeping packaging in recycling, so that these can be kept in the loop for many years to come.

It is important to OTTO, to make a point of the aspects of plausibility and autonomy and we are simplify the jungle of seals for our customers by introducing the label GOODProduct, which combines all sustainability seals and provides easier access. You can recognise our sustainable products by the GOODproduct label. With all the many seals and certificates, it is easy to lose track sometimes. You can find the ones we use here at OTTO on the GOODProduct page.

Customers, who ordered from OTTO, can do something good with their OTTO box. You can fill it – or any other box as well – with clothing donations and send the parcel to “Creating space – with love”. In doing so, your old favourites reach new owners, who can still use them. With each donated parcel to “Platz schaffen mit Herz”, customers support non-profit organisations and projects. The special thing about this is, that customers have a say in the distribution of the proceeds and therefore, can support their personal projects, which they take closely to heart. More about the project on the initiatives website.