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Pandora, Zalando, IKEA, Amazon ramp up sustainability focus

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The beginning of 2020 has seen major European retailers increasing their sustainability focus. We look at some of the announcements here.

Pandora

The end of January saw Pandora announce two targets: firstly, this year it plans to source 100% renewable electricity at its crafting facilities in Thailand by buying renewable energy certificates from verified solar energy providers in the country. Longer term, Pandora will increase its own production of solar power, which currently accounts for 3% of its energy usage.

It also plans to be carbon-neutral in its own operations, covering crafting facilities, stores, distribution centres and offices, by 2025. This will include buying green power for its stores.

The company will publish a full plan by the end of 2021 to reduce emissions in compliance with the Science Based Targets Initiative, the corporate climate change action group. This will see it working with suppliers, which account for 90% of its emissions, to reduce them.

For what it classes unavoidable emissions, around 5% of the total, Pandora will buy carbon offsets.

“Addressing climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today, and as a large global company we have an obligation to contribute to the necessary solutions.

“Responsible business practices such as recycling of materials and waste have always been part of Pandora’s way of operating, and we now commit to ambitious targets to reduce our carbon emissions and help drive sustainability in the jewellery industry,” said CEO Alexander Lacik.

Zalando

Zalando teamed up with nine Nordic brands to create a more sustainable womenswear collection, called “Small steps. Big impact. by Zalando.”

The fashion retailer worked with Blanche, Bruuns Bazaar, Designers Remix, Filippa K, Han Kjøbenhavn, Holzweiler, House of Dagmar, Libertine Libertine and Won Hundred on the collection.

The brands were challenged to create clothes with high quality and strong design while using less resource-intensive processing techniques and better materials while managing social concerns in the supply chain.

Zalando claims to offer over 20,000 items flagged with sustainability from over 240 different brands

Amazon and IKEA

Amazon and IKEA recently joined a corporate alliance in North America which aims to further electric vehicle (EV) development.

Spearheaded by sustainability industry group Ceres with other major members including Siemens and AT&T, the Corporate Electric Vehicle Alliance will help member companies to electrify their fleets.

It aims to offer a single industry voice to advocate for policies that enable electrification as well as signal to manufacturers the scale of demand for the vehicles.

The group aims to address a lack of scale in EVs and deficiencies in public policy.

InternetRetailing sister title eDelivery has just published a report on post-purchase sustainability, including logistics, last mile and returns.

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