Otto Wants to Become the Largest Online Platform For Sustainable Shopping

Otto has now announced a new sustainability strategy that focuses on resource conservation. As early as 2030, Germany’s largest online retailer wants to be carbon neutral in terms of its balance sheet.

Sustainable shopping is to be the rule by 2025. To achieve this, Otto is focusing on sustainable items in its range and is expanding recyclable solutions for packaging. All of their own and licensed brands are to become 100 percent sustainable. Furthermore, the online giant wants to further reduce packaging waste. At the same time, otto.de is to become the largest platform for sustainable online shopping in Germany: To this end, Otto is expanding its range of sustainable items in a concentrated manner by 2025 and is also focusing on recyclable solutions, for example in textiles and packaging. Standards will also be raised further on the Otto marketplace as well as in the supply chains, the company said at a press conference.

Marc Opelt, chairman of Otto’s divisional board, said: “Sustainability is not a nice extra for me – it is the foundation of our trade.” The company’s key areas of action also include packaging: by 2025, all shipping packaging used by Otto is to be recycled, biodegradable, or reusable. Otto will completely convert all its own and licensed brands to sustainable products within the same period.

In order to extend the lifespan of articles and raw materials, Otto is increasingly relying on circular solutions, such as repair services and circularly designed textiles. A first circular fashion collection was launched last spring, with a follow-up collection coming in 2023. Otto is also already testing circular solutions in packaging: in November 2022, for example, a test will begin with fully biodegradable shipping bags, which the retailer developed with the Hamburg-based start-up Traceless in two years of research.