Otto Delivers CO2-neutral
At mail order company Otto, all deliveries and returns are now CO2-neutral. In addition to its existing climate protection measures, the company is now offsetting CO2 emissions that cannot be avoided during transport. The climate protection organization atmosfair is acting as a partner.
Mail-order company Otto now also relies on a compensation model for more climate protection in deliveries and returns – without price increases for customers, as the company emphasizes. The compensation of so far unavoidable CO2 emissions is part of the Otto climate protection strategy, as the company emphasizes. In order to avoid and reduce CO2 emissions, the company relies on a variety of measures, not only in transport, including the use of green electricity, more efficient procurement logistics or the reduction of air freight capacities. For years now, the company has been working with logistics partner Hermes on concrete savings measures in distribution, for example by expanding e-mobility, parcel delivery by cargo-bike, or even more efficient route planning.
“Every company causes CO2 emissions, even if it uses resources sparingly and operates sustainably,” says Marc Opelt, Chairman of the Otto Division Executive Board. “We therefore want to reduce CO2 emissions in the long term or avoid them altogether.” However, that won’t work overnight, he says, because there are clear technical limits. “This is where our compensation model comes into play as an important interim goal: as long as we cannot avoid all CO2 emissions, we make voluntary compensation payments to atmosfair. In this way, we can already be active for more climate protection.”
In order to offset 100 percent of the remaining, unavoidable emissions in distribution, Otto says it purchases CO2 certificates. For every delivery and every return, the mail order company automatically makes a payment to atmosfair. Partner atmosfair develops and operates CO2 compensation projects worldwide. Otto’s contribution is currently supporting two projects in Rwanda and Nepal, which promote the construction of efficient stoves and small biogas plants. According to the company, this way, up to 120,000 tons of CO2 can be saved annually.
