ESG

Environmental. Social. Governance.

The future belongs to companies that consistently and permanently assume responsibility for the environment and society. For this reason, EK Retail developed an ESG strategy in 2022 which will be applied to all the business units and will lead directly to the specialist shops of our retail partners.

As to the question of how the ESG criteria of ‘Environmental’, ‘Social’ and ‘Governance’ can be brought to life for us, we have defined three topics upon which we will focus in the coming years.

1. CO2 reduction and circular retail
EK Retail is committed to the Paris Climate Agreement. To make our contribution to the agreed limitation of the global temperature increase to 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial level, we will reduce 55% of our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and become Net-Zero by 2050 at the latest.

In this context, we have identified the successive conversion to a circular economy as a central topic for the large area of ‘retail’ action. In practice, this includes the use of more renewable and recycled materials, waste avoidance, and the support of affiliated retail partners in the implementation of circular business models, such as second-hand, recycling or repair.

What is needed here are long-term partnerships with retailers, brands, service partners and start-ups which support and drive the initiated change from a linear to a circular economy.

2. Empower employees
Employee satisfaction is an important prerequisite for business success. We will continue to invest in the health and development of our employees so that they can maximise their potential and develop both personally and professionally.

In doing so, we will further expand existing programmes, such as our health concept, or our offers to improve the work-life balance, and launch new concepts.

3. Local retail as the customers’ first choice
Local retailers have always stood for quality, advice, service and credibility; they are therefore ideally placed to support consumers in achieving a sustainable lifestyle.

To achieve this, we invest in sustainable concepts and products and create the transparency of products with sustainability attributes that consumers need to make local retail synonymous with sustainable shopping.

More information on our ESG strategy can be found at: esg.ek-retail.com