Layman s Report. Ecolabel e-store. Project coordinator: ENERGON Project website:

Transcription

1 Layman s Report Ecolabel e-store Project coordinator: ENERGON Project website: W h e n B u s i n e s s m e e t s t h e e n v i r o n m e n t ECOPORIO 3

2 List of contents n Summary 3 n ECOPORIO s vision a greener Europe 3 n The challenge 4 The need 4 Why green online shopping? 4 What are trustful internationally-accepted ecolabels? 5 n The Project 6 The team Stifter, Leitner & Karg OG 7 n Innovative Results 8 Unique ecolabel webshop 9 Indicators for Environmental Performance 9 CO 2 -compensation 10 ECOPORIO s product range 10 ECOPORIO bestsellers 11 Increased transparency and availability of eco-labelled products 11 Breaking up market barriers 11 Contribution to improve the competitiveness of EU 11 n The market 12 Marketing activities 13 Participation at fairs 13 Direct communication on-site 14 Advertising campaign 14 Public and Media Relations 15 Imprint: Responsible party: Stifter, Leitner & Karg OG, Kundmanngasse 33/8, 1030 Vienna, Austria; Editorial staff: Ernst Leitner, Rainer Stifter, Stefan Tauchhammer, Christian Kukla, Michael Karg; Images: Fotolia, Ecoporio suppliers, Ernst Leitner; Production: G&L Werbe und Verlags GmbH, Graphic Design: Ingrid Gassner; Publisher: G&L Werbe und Verlags GmbH, February 2012; Printed in-line with the Austrian Eco-Label guidelines UZ 24. Please order directly at There you will always find up-to-date prices for all of our products. We are not liable for any misprints!

3 Summary ECOPORIO is the only webshop in Europe offering exclusively eco-labelled products. It is the only internet market place where, today, more than 1,200 environmentally-friendly, high quality products can be purchased at competitive prices. ECOPORIO is a webshop where consumers can learn about the environmental advantages of eco-labelled products in comparison to conventional products. ECOPORIO encourages the customer to compensate the CO 2 emissions caused during the delivery of the ordered goods. ECOPORIO supports manufacturers who are willing to contribute in their way to global environmental challenges. ECOPORIO s vision a greener Europe Our vision is clear Europe needs more environmentally-friendly products available for purchase to increase demand and thus the sale of eco-friendly products. ECOPORIO accepts this challenge and presents the solution. We want to reach out to an increasing number of people and drum up interest for products that, today, only present a market niche. We believe that ECOPORIO can make a substantial contribution to the development of new markets and increase the market share of environmentally-friendly goods. By offering a full range of eco-certified products in one single, central hub, we can support European businesses and customers in making the right decision to for greener products. 3

4 The challenge n Eco-labels have little level of acceptance There are more than 300 eco-labels in Europe covering the market for goods and services. This excessive range confuses consumers. They struggle to know which are the most reliable labels and their knowledge of what such accreditations actually mean for the customer strongly differs throughout Europe. Knowing of some eco-labels does not immediately guarantee that consumers fully understand all the criteria which need to be met in order to become certified and they are not 100 % aware of the environmental advantages that these products offer over conventional products. n Eco-labelled products are hardly available Before this project commenced, internationally-accepted, Eco-labelled products were scarcely available. Existing information sources present eco-labelled products in a very limited and restricted manner. Little or no information was given on how and where individual, accredited products could be purchased. Especially for small manufacturers it is still very difficult to offer these products to consumers through one central location and overcome the presenting logistical and linguistic barriers. Another issue is that some retailers of eco-labelled products do not provide useful information on the environmental advantages of their products. This makes it even harder for consumers to identify eco-labelled products in the market. It seems that many dealers do not consider it wholly necessary information. n No indicators for environmental advantages Consumers have problems identifying the advantages of eco-labelled products in comparison to conventional products. One reason is that manufacturers do not openly present information about conventional goods so that a comparison can be made. In addition the environmental performance of eco-labelled products can be verified only by studying technical criteria which is a time consuming and difficult task, especially when bearing in mind less able members of the community, and further because relevant data is not available at European level. ECOPORIO challenges these barriers and provides up to date, clear and reliable data. The need There is a rather high demand for eco-labelled products. In Germany, the ecolabel Blue Angel has an overall recognition of approx. 80 %, and one third of consumers check to see if their desired product bears an eco-label. Impressively too, 66 % are willing to pay more for certified products 1. In Austria, the market for eco-labelled products is constantly increasing. In Europe the number of eco-labelled products is also increasing and there are nearly 40,000 products accredited today with the EU Ecolabel, the Austrian Ecolabel, the Blue Angel or the Nordic Ecolabel. Why green online shopping? Online shopping decreases the impact on the environment. A study by Carnegie Mellon 1 Eurobarometer Flash. April

5 University s Green Design Institute 2 found that shopping online consumes less energy and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 35 percent compared to shopping at traditional retail stores. These figures vary and depend on how the customer gets to the point of sale. Therefore ECO- PORIO encourages CO 2 -compensation for the transport of goods. What are trustful internationally-accepted eco-labels? Eco-labelled products help to preserve our nature, reduce CO 2 emissions and contain less toxic ingredients; they are less harmful to the environment and not hazardous to humans and animals. It should be in everyone s interest to prefer these products for the sake of their own health, if nothing else. Internationally-accepted environmental labels for products and services are based on the ISO standard and include the following: European Ecolabel Austrian Ecolabel Nordic Ecolabel Blue Angel GOTS Austria Bio Guarantee European Organic Food NORDIC ECOLABEL Official EU Ecolabel for products and services Official AT Ecolabel for products and services Official Scandinavian Ecolabel for products and services Official German Ecolabel for products and services Organic cotton label Global Organic Textile Standard Official label for organic food products in Austria Official EU label for organic food in Europe Products with internationally-accepted eco-labels have a certified good environmental quality and guaranteed technical performance. Any product bearing these recognised eco-labels had to undergo thorough test procedures by certified third-party institutions and thus verifies its compliance with green criteria. Products with the EU Ecolabel Have a certified good environmental quality and guaranteed technical performance Have a lower environmental impact on air, water, soil and human health throughout its life cycle, from raw material extraction to end-of-life Often present the added value advantage of lower than average costs 3. The most important European ecolabels Label European Ecolabel Blue Angel Austrian Ecolabel Country All over EU Germany Austria Products certified 21,900 11, ,700 Product groups Nordic Ecolabel Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland February 16th

6 Project 6

7 The Project The aim of the project is to establish a webshop to significantly improve the sale and visibility of European Eco-labelled products. This includes: n Developing an e-store where only Eco-labelled products can be purchased online for the first time in Europe n Significantly increase the sale of Eco-labelled products n Increasing the visibility of European eco-labels and raise the awareness amongst consumers of environmentally-friendly products Today, for the first time, environmentally friendly products with an internationally-accepted ecolabel are available on one webshop. ECOPORIO offers more than 1,200 products and any customer-facing collateral is available in German and English. Special attention was given to the environmentally-friendly and fast transport of goods as well as secure payment systems. Professional marketing is understood to be a key success factor in our project and we promote our e-store intensively amongst our target group, the European hospitality sector. Our activities will help to increase the sale of eco-labelled products, to make these products available where they were not available in the past, to decrease the environmental footprint (as all Ecolabelled products have a better CO 2 -equivalent in comparison to non-labelled products) and to improve Europe s competitiveness. The team Stifter, Leitner & Karg OG This project is being carried out by a consortium of 3 partner companies Energon, G&L and Imsoft all with masses of experience with eco-labels. The team consists of: Rainer Stifter, ENERGON GmbH Project Coordinator Stefan Tauchhammer, ENERGON GmbH Product Manager Ernst Leitner, G&L GmbH Marketing Manager Ingrid Gassner, G&L Graphic Designer Christian Kukla, G&L Public Relations Consultant Michael Karg, ImSoft IT Rainer Stifter Stefan Tauchhammer Ernst Leitner Ingrid Gassner Christian Kukla Michael Karg During the project the independent company Stifter, Leitner & Karg OG was established to operate the webshop. 7

8 Results 8

9 Innovative Results Unique ecolabel webshop ECOPORIO is the first European webshop to feature only internationally-accepted ecolabelled products. Most of our products are certified with one of the following ecolabels: EU Ecolabel, Blue Angel (German Ecolabel), Nordic Ecolabel (Scandinavian Ecolabel), Austrian Ecolabel, Austria Bio Guarantee (Austrian organic label), GOTS (Global Organic Textile) and/or the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). No other webshop in Europe offers this service to their customers. Indicators for Environmental Performance ECOPORIO has gone to great lengths to develop environmental performance indicators to assess our products we have calculated, based on the eco-label criteria of each product group, the environmental advantages over non-eco products. This information is available online together with the product descriptions. We have produced indicators for the following product groups: n Electronics: hand dryers n Office products: paper, whiteboard markers n Cleaning products: detergents for dishwashers, liquid shine rinse, all purpose cleaners, sanitary cleaners, glass cleaners, toilet cleaners, laundry detergents n Furniture: mattresses n Dried food products: tea n Body care/hygiene products: soap, shampoos, lip balm, body lotions, natural oils, cellulite oils, massage oils, body fit gel n Miscellaneous: cotton By reading these environmental performance indicators, our customers can quickly identify the eco-advantages of our products against standard products. 9

10 Environmental Performance Indicators at ECOPORIO Example of the Environmental Performance Indicators (EPI) CO 2 -compensation CO 2 emissions caused by transport from manufacturer to customers can be compensated and will be organized by Climate Partner. ECOPORIO s product range Our product range covers several groups. In January 2012 we offered more than products including cleaning products, textiles, office products, furniture, paints, food and beverages, hygiene products, electrical equipment, garden products and renewable energy. These products are delivered by 33 suppliers or manufacturers located in 6 countries. In addition we do offer complementary products that are needed to use the environmentallyfriendly products in our store. An example for this is soap dispensers for liquid soaps as there are currently no eco-labelled dispensers available in the market. 10

11 ECOPORIO bestsellers All-purpose-cleaner Spices from controlled organic farming 5-zones mattress Evita Eco Increased transparency and availability of eco-labelled products Eco-labelled products have, in the past, hardly been available in EU countries and yet manufacturers of these products are located all around Europe: Ecoporio tackles this problem head on. These products, which are hard to identify and not prevalent within the market, are listed on ECOPORIO. E.g. in our product range we have Eco-labelled work shoes from Spain, work clothes from Denmark, organic washing detergents and organic mattresses from Austria, soaps from Italy and office material from Germany. Breaking up market barriers The purpose of the EU is to provide the opportunity for the free trade of products within its region. ECOPORIO opens up the market for the small-sized producers of eco-labelled products, who have a hard time offering their products abroad due to language restrictions and barriers to transport. All of ECOPORIO s product descriptions are available in German and English. Contribution to improve the competitiveness of EU A major advantage is that most Eco-labelled products are produced within the European Union. ECOPORIO promotes these products and therefore contributes to the sale of European products. An estimated 95 % of the products offered on ECOPORIO are produced within the EU. A great and unexpected outcome is that ECOPORIO even triggered the labelling of existing products from businesses who wanted to sell their products through the website. 11

12 Market 12

13 The market To begin with, business-to-business marketing strategy was mostly focussed on the hospitality sector in German-speaking countries. The webshop went online in April 2008 and targeted mainly business customers in Austria. By 2010 we opened up the shop for business customers in Germany. Due to large interest from private consumers we have now decided open up the shop to private consumers in Since 2011 the website is available in English and products can be delivered to all European countries on request. Marketing activities The team of ECOPORIO has also undertaken several online and offline marketing activities. We produced a quarterly newsletter where we informed our target groups about interesting product facts, environmental aspects, latest news and presented to the market our Ecolabel manufacturers. Screenshot of the newsletter Product catalogue, information leaflet B2B and B2C Professional print material has been produced (product catalogues, media press kit, information leaflets, business cards) which is used during all marketing activities e.g. events and conferences. Participation at fairs In 2010, we started presenting ECOPORIO at tourism fairs. The kick-off presentation took place at Alles für den Gast Salzburg with our own booth. This fair is number one in the hospitality sector. In co-operation with the Austrian trade magazine, ÖGZ, we organized an ECOPORIO Branchentalk with important representatives from hotels and politics. From we covered relevant fairs at which partial stands were hosted by the Ecoporio marketing team. The main objective was to disseminate project information and to present the new, simple way to purchase online accredited products. 13

14 FAIR SCHEDULE Name of fair Date Location Activity ITB Berlin March 2010 Berlin Key stakeholder meetings Internorga March 2010 Hamburg Suppliers meetings Gast Salzburg, AT April 2010 Salzburg Stand, presentation, mediaevent Hotel BIZ 20 April 2010 Vienna Key stakeholder meetings Gartenbaumesse August 2010 Tulln Infos at stand Federal Env. Ministry Ferienmesse Vienna January 2011 Vienna Infos at stand Federal Env. Ministry ITB Berlin 9-13 March 2011 Berlin Key stakeholder meetings Internorga March 2011 Hamburg Supplier meetings Gast Vienna, AT April 2011 Vienna Stand/Coop Fed. Min., City of Vienna Hotel BIZ 17 Mai 2011 Vienna Key stakeholder meetings Gartenbaumesse August 2011 Tulln Infos at stand Federal Env. Ministry Ferienmesse Vienna January 2012 Vienna Infos at stand Federal Env. Ministry ITB Berlin 7-11 March 2012 Berlin Key stakeholder meetings ECOPORIO Stand activities: Mr. Stifter is interviewing Mr. Fichtl, Austrian Consumer Association, on green procurement in the Austrian hotel sector. Direct communication on-site In order to raise awareness of our new offering, we directly presented ECOPORIO to over 50 tourist accommodations. Some of these accommodations are now regular customers. To increase visibility we co-operated with the Federal Ministry of Environment in Austria and the Ministry of Environment in Germany. We also presented ECOPORIO at hotel meetings including the annual Best Western Central Europe meeting, the annual Naturidyll Hotels meeting and we initiated presentations at green public procurement events. During these meetings we hosted stands in central market places. Advertising campaign In 2012 we started to carry out an advertising campaign in the eco-lifestyle magazine Lebensart. 14

15 It addresses B2C (environmentally-oriented consumers) as well as to B2B (eco-friendly entrepreneurs). Paid for adverts are published over several months, beginning in February 2012 and ending in May Public and Media Relations All marketing-activities are leveraged by co-operating with journalists to spread information to our target groups. The team launched press releases, visited editorial offices, wrote articles exclusively for chosen special interest magazines and newsletters. Another part of our public relations has been the development of our newsletter. The ECOPORIO Newsletter is targeted towards public decision-makers like competent bodies, companies offering eco-labelled products or services as well as multipliers like journalists. We promote products, especially innovative products new on the market and we present manufacturers, partners and interesting topics like climate compensation. Co-operations with internet-media like 4 in the field of interest have already been successfully accomplished. EU ECOLABEL NEWS ALERT Issue n 63, April 2011 The Flower issue #02 / 2009 THE EUROPEAN ECOLABEL news ISSN X Newsletter 30, Juni 2011 Start page with topseller Inside page with product listing 4 ( consciously shopping ) is a website run by the Austrian Ministry of the Environment to inform about labels and to promote eco-friendly products. ECOPORIO s products are tested regarding the certifi-cates and integrated into the website:

16 Contact information Stifter, Leitner & Karg OG Kundmanngasse 33 A 1030 Wien Tel Fax Rainer Stifter, ENERGON GmbH project coordinator, rainer.stifter@ecoporio.eu Ernst Leitner, G&L GmbH marketing, ernst.leitner@ecoporio.eu Michael Karg, ImSoft programmer, m.karg@imsoft.at ECO/08/239044/SI Ecolabel e-store (ECOPORIO) ECOPORIO