Gebr. Heinemann hopes to turn the heads of environmentally conscious travel shoppers – and those with an interest in sustainable consumption – through a new concept.

Visible at Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg Airports and via Heinemann’s webshop beginning this month, ‘future friendly: Great for you. Better for the planet’ focuses on environmentally friendly products, with an initial focus on sustainable packaging and materials.

Dr Dirk Schneider, Chief Commercial Officerm, 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.”

The family owned firm has introduced a survey aimed at travellers that twins with the launch of the new concept [click here].

SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING FOCUS

The ‘future friendly’ concept emphasises the Hamburg-headquartered travel retailer’s sustainability efforts with a view that great travel retail products should also be ecologically justifiable.

In phase one, which concentrates on sustainable packaging and materials, Heinemann asked brands about their contribution towards sustainability.

The packaging that Heinemann labels as ‘future friendly’ must fulfil at least one of four attributes: recyclable, recycled, refillable and plastic-free.

Britta Hoffmann, Director Purchasing Perfume & Cosmetics at Gebr. Heinemann, added: “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. 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.”

Moving forward, the family-owned firm says it will continue to enrich its ‘future-friendly’ product range in sight of a 2030 goal to achieve more than half of its turnover from sustainable products.

As reported, Heinemann published its third progress report on sustainable development goals linked to the United Nations Global Compact in September.

For more on Gebr. Heinemann, read the TRBusiness Top 10 International Operators report by clicking here.