Q1/23 – Off to a good start

Q1 Sustainability Summary
Off to a good start

The first quarter of 2023 was about preparing for the year ahead of us. We wanted to give our initiatives a clear direction and to do so, we had to understand where we were standing first. 

So we entered the year with calculations of our key metrics stated in our Sustainability Report and an internal puls survey centered around knowledge related to sustainable development like extended producer’s responsibility and their perspective on Packhelp initiatives. Keep on reading to find out the results.

At last, we launched the Eco Choice tag in our shop and obtained a long-awaited Blue Angel certificate for our recycled poly mailer. We think we’re off to a pretty good start.

Table of contents: 

1. Metrics and calculations
2. Employee survey results
3. Blue Angel certificate for recycled poly mailer
4. Eco choice

Metrics and calculations

As you may remember, last year we issued our first progress report outlining our long-term commitments. We want our sustainability journey to be easy to trace and promote a systematic approach to measuring progress. We mapped the material issues in 3 main areas - people, planet, and purpose, and set ourselves 23 ambitious KPIs. 

In order to keep track of our progress and keep you up to date, we started the year with calculations of the main metrics listed in the report to be ready with last year’s summary as fast as we can. An in-depth data will be published along with the Progress Report 2022 in Q2, however, we can already share a sneak peek of it:

Survey

Similarly to last year, we run a pulse survey to gain our employees' perspectives on where we’re standing in terms of our employees’ attitude towards sustainability initiatives we roll out as a company and understanding of basic concepts related to this topic. We are glad to see the improvement from last year’s results, especially in terms of knowledge transfer and engagement. 

Sustainability enthusiasts 

2023

2022

From 51.9% to 76,7%, it is definitely an upgrade! The number of people with not enough knowledge also decreases significantly. 

Packhelp's commitment to sustainability 

2023

2022

More and more employees agree with the statement that Packehlp is committed to sustainability, which is definitely a. good sign.

Obtaining a Blaue Angel certificate

If you are not familiar with the Blue Angel certificate, here’s a word of explanation. It is one of the most reliable ecolabels issued by the German Federal Government for more than 40 years. In other words, it is an independent and credible label that guarantees that a product places less burden on the environment and fulfills high standards with respect to the protection of human health – while also having the same fitness for use and quality as other products.

We were hoping to share this news with you in the last quarter, but the analysis of our recycled poly mailer got prolonged. Let it be the testimony to the meticulous process each product has undergone to be able to use this ecolabel. 

But now, at last, we can say that our recycled poly mailer proudly holds the Blue Angel certificate. It is made of 80% recycled LDPE, which make it a lightweight & recyclable mailing bag that comes with 2 adhesive strips for send/return, which we highly recommend! Use what you already have and design your packaging for multiple purposes! 

Eco Choice

Eco Choice is the new selection of our products with superior sustainability characteristics. They were selected from our existing packaging portfolio based on assessment in 3 areas: Carbon Footprint, Supplier ESG, and the eco-design of the products, which fits well with our 3P framework that we use in our long-term sustainability strategy. Before developing it, we had no simple answer to questions about the most sustainable products in our portfolio, because it was hard to compare them. 

So how did we do it? We compared the strengths and weaknesses of each product from our standard offer and awarded them with a final score of 1 to 5. Only products with a final score above 4 got our Eco Choice badge. 

The analysis that we conducted will not only help us to give better advice to customers but also made us understand the weaknesses and strengths of particular products from our portfolio. The ones with lower scores will go through improvement plans or we will search for alternative products that, with time, will replace the product with the lowest score.

Now that we know which products have superior eco characteristics and we want to increase their share in our GMV. Our goal is to reach 50% at the end of this quarter. Ambitious? It’s just the right thing to do. 

If you are curious about products that made it to the Eco Choice collection simply go to our shop and filter them out with our new filter Eco Choice (which by the way, is one of the most favourite for our users now!). You can also look for the special badge on the product pages.