Heading in the right directionActing sustainably means not letting yourself be diverted from your path. A magazine about courage, milestones and an attempt to save the world.YOU ARE THE FUTUREA digitalisation initiative strengthens employees. FIELD STUDY Can any farm become an ecological oasis?A STITCH IN TIME How can Bangladesh’s garment industry be made safe?The sustainability magazine in cooperation with

THING LIKE THAT WORK? EDITORIAL 3 no point in cheating. Let’s be honest: it takes more than advertising slogans. You have to take a clear position. Schröder: But a major retail group isn’t the same thing as a local wildlife conservation group. It has to sell products. That’s its sense and purpose. Birken: Yes, it’s a dilemma and there’s no way round it: there’s a lot of potential for conflict between upholding values and creating value. Prof Dr Michael Otto and Ranga Yogeshwar have a really frank conversation about that starting on page 22. But I’m absolutely certain that, if a company doesn’t offer a convincing solution, it won’t survive in the long term. Ethical consumption used to be a niche. But nowadays, whether or not a company shows credible commitment in this area often plays a crucial role in the customer’s choice of product. So a compa- ny’s attitude doesn’t just affect the purchase decision, it’s increasingly becoming a “licence to operate” as well. Half-heartedness isn’t tolerated: greenwashing doesn’t work any more. As a business, you simply won’t survive if you compromise your values for the sake of globalisation. Schröder: Speaking of values – there are different approaches… We discussed whether, for the purposes of this magazine, we should only look at sustainability from an ecological angle or include other facets as well. Birken: … and I think we were quite right to take a broader view. In 2021, corporate responsibility extends far beyond the ecological and social quality of a company’s products and services. A clear position and foresight are what’s needed. Anything that helps transform our society and make it fit for the future is part of that. How does a company take its employees along on this journey? Which “future of work” fits with the values that make protect- ing natural resources a priority as well – and how do we get there? In the magazine, for example, we present the group-wide learning initiative we’ve introduced for our employees – a very systematic programme by the name of TechUcation (p. 82). Digitalisation doesn’t have to leave anybody behind. Schröder: That would be an example of social sustaina- bility. Birken: … yes, we want to revive the social discourse about corporate responsibility in the age of digital trans- formation and team up with stakeholders from business, politics, science and civil society to outline a way forward for value-oriented corporate action for the benefit of all in the future. Schröder: A cross-sector dialogue on sustainability. That’s what we’ve been doing too: a retail group and a popular science magazine. It turned out pretty well, if you ask me. Birken + Schröder: We wish all our readers an enjoyable and informative read! Jens Schröder and Alexander Birken in The Forest, a social space at the Otto Group headquarters in Hamburg – just one of many areas available to employees for creative thinking, networking or interdisciplinary collaboration.

CONTENTS Page 2 Editorial CEO Alexander Birken and GEO Editor-in-Chief Jens Schröder explain what it’s all about. Page 66 Bangladesh’s garment industry Is it still OK to produce clothing in Asia? And what’s now required of textile companies there? 5 Page 6 What’s yours? Our favourite sustainable projects around the world. Page 10 Online vs. offline shopping Which is gentler on the environment? Page 12 A flourishing idea Page 76 The new guy An interview with Otto Group’s Chief Sustainability Officer Dr Tobias Wollermann. Page 82 Wow, Elon Musk! How the TechUcation initiative helps employees participate in a digital future. How the F.R.A.N.Z. project helps farmers test – and learn to love – new ways of cultivating the soil. Page 86 It’s what we do The Otto Group’s sustainability projects at a glance. Page 22 Interview with Prof Dr Otto and Ranga Yogeshwar Climate change, corona, excessive consumption: world- wide problems that need to be addressed now. Page 34 Cotton made in Africa We pay a visit to Wisdom, a farmer in Zambia. Page 42 We deliver Hermes is trialling new delivery vehicles for the critical “last mile”. Page 50 Together we’re strong Bees, trees, islands: Otto Group employees present their own sustainable projects. Page 60 Let’s get loud Through music, The Young ClassX project helps young people lead happier and more fulfilling lives. Page 90 From tree to cabinet We wanted to know how FSC®-certified furniture is made. Page 98 Circular thinking Dr Michael Braungart describes what the future of packaging could look like. Page 104 Let’s have more Great ideas for sustainable fashion. Page 107 Publishing details h c s e r W s a n o J , k i n v o g r o T n a h t a n o J , r e f f i h c S a i r a M , a s o R i a n m o R , d u a g i R r e t e P , é l i p u a M d i v a D , s n e t r a M l e x A , t r e t i e M a i d u a l C , h s a k A B M G 5 / 4 . P , m o c . h s a l p s n U / n a m f f u a K n i t s u J r e v o C : s o t o h P

7 Park, which covers approx. 3,000 hectares: dry wetlands release huge amounts of greenhouse gases, whereas in their natural state they absorb more climate-damag- ing CO2 than any other ecosystem in the world. And as reservoirs, they even provide protection from sometimes catastrophic flooding. Over 95% of all peatlands in Germany have already been destroyed, accounting for approx. 5% of the country’s CO2 emissions. But it doesn’t take much to make a difference: a pickaxe and muscle power are a great way to start. more digital participation, for instance. She gives talks, runs internet courses in senior living facilities and is highly critical of the fact that many such residences still don’t have wifi. In these pandemic times, Hirche’s dedication is all the more appre- ciated: every morning since April 2020, she’s been holding Zoom parties with readings, talks or chair-based yoga to help seniors feel less isolated. In YouTube videos she explains how to use the smart- phone camera, what flight mode is or how the corona alert app works. Demand is huge, says Hirche, and there are still no- where near enough comparable offerings. “Our world is becoming increasingly dig- ital. We have to make sure we don’t leave the elderly behind, otherwise we exclude them from public life.” 4 SENIORS LEARN TO SURF – ON THE INTERNET “To begin with, they’re afraid more than anything else,” says Dagmar Hirche from Hamburg. “Afraid of crashing the internet if they press the wrong key.” The 63-year- old teaches seniors how to use smart- phones, tablets and social media. With her charity Wege aus der Einsamkeit, she’s been committed to helping the elderly combat loneliness for years – through A PICKAXE AND MUSCLE POWER 5 FOR A DEBT-FREE WORLD The problem: approx. 7 million people in Germany are heavily in debt; budgeting properly can be a challenge – for young people too. Jana Titov, Jannik Steinhaus and Sebastian Richter, three young employees of financial services provider EOS, which is part of the Otto Group, want to tackle this social problem at its core. The idea: in order to raise children’s awareness of the importance of han- dling money responsibly at an early age, analogue and digital teaching materials were developed for pupils in grades three to six. There are knowledge cards that ex- plain financial terms, for instance, as well as fun tasks based on everyday life and an online learning portal. And now? Prof Dr Michael Otto, Chairman of the Otto Group Supervisory Board, was so im- pressed with the idea that the three young co-founders now work for their own EOS-affiliated startup: the Finlit Founda- tion, a non-profit company within the >

9 They developed ideas for raising aware- ness of just how vital it is to protect and conserve our resources, coming up with presentations, posters, games or WhatsApp chain messages. And the Environmental Foundation Michael Otto, which initiated the Aqua-Agents project, is planting a tree for every class that participates. Today it’s clear that although digital learning certainly can’t replace the classroom experience, it can be a valuable addition. Which is why, in future, the Aqua-Agents will work with both analogue and digital elements so that as many children as possible can become junior water experts. 8 SOLAR POWER FOR AFRICA More than 600 million people in sub- Saharan Africa live without electricity be- cause there aren’t enough power stations or supply networks. No electricity means no lighting, no radio, no way to charge a mobile phone – and being cut off from information. Azuri PayGo Energy is a company that specialises in selling solar modules in combination with a basic set of simple electrical devices: LED lights, a rechargeable radio, a mobile phone charger, a torch – and the aforementioned solar panel. Customers use their smart- phone to pay the total costs of $270 in small instalments spread over 18 months, which works out to 50 cents a day. After that, the clean energy is free. The costs are often shared by several households. Today the solar kits are being used in 12 African countries and supplying 750,000 people with electricity. The idea has received various accolades, including the UN’s Momentum for Change award. 9 DRY TOILETS AS GREEN 10 WHEN REFUGEES HELP LIFESAVERS EACH OTHER Push a button, flush, forget – second na- ture in industrialised countries, a luxury in the island state of Haiti. About a third of the population doesn’t have a toilet. That’s not just a violation of human dig- nity, it‘s a health risk too: disease spreads like wildfire, hundreds of thousands have contracted cholera over the last 10 years. Aid organisation Sustainable Organ- ic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) has developed a practical solution: dry toilets. Instead of flushing, the faeces and urine are separated, disinfected at composting facilities and turned into fertiliser to pro- vide an inexpensive alternative to chemi- cal fertilisers, which the local farmers can barely afford. What’s more, land that has been lying fallow due to environmental damage can be farmed again, and harmful greenhouse gases are reduced. GREEN POWER FOR 750,000 PEOPLE They’ve survived war, flight and dis- placement. But the memories remain. Many refugees in Germany are trau- matised. And it’s difficult to find help quickly: there are long waiting lists for therapy, not to mention the language barriers. This is where Ipso – Interna- tional Psychosocial Organisation can help with its low-threshold counselling concept. People who have fled them- selves spend a year training to become psychosocial counsellors. After three months of intensive training, these “Ipso Counsellors” gain on-the-job experience, including in refugee facil- ities. The benefit: they speak the same language and know their clients’ culture – and because of their own experience, they know the best way to provide support. Mainly active in Afghanistan until 2016, the organisation has been establishing a network in Germany ever since, with financial support from Prof Dr Michael Otto. Today the psychosocial counsellors work in Ipso Care Centers in Hamburg, Berlin and Erfurt and are available online at www. ipso-care.com. While the counselling is no substitute for trauma therapy, such a long and in-depth treatment journey isn’t always necessary. Thanks to Ipso, the clients now have somebody to talk to – somebody who will listen and show them they’re not alone in a coun- try that’s still strange to them. For more information go to www.ipsocontext.org.

Photocredit: Brooke-Lark/Unsplash.comlightweight products in such a way that they fit into a letterbox. An idea from the US has struck a chord in Germany too: DHL wants to install extra-large parcel delivery boxes in apartment buildings or front gardens. Some online retailers and logistics firms are meanwhile offer-ing customers environmentally friendly delivery by cargo bike or electric van. But deploying climate-friendly vehicles across the board will ultimately require political action. Sustainable mobility concepts could facilitate and even accel-erate eco-friendly transport. In London in October 2020, Ford and parcel deliv-ery service Hermes teamed up to test a model that combines delivery vans with pedestrian couriers in order to deliver parcels faster and, by using fewer vans, more sustainably in big cities.Online retailers are also constantly de-veloping digital tools to make online shopping as eco-friendly as possible. The goal, first and foremost, is to avoid things being sent back by helping cus-tomers make the right choices in the first place. Detailed product descriptions, lots of (good) photos, zoom-in features for fabrics and details, and personal consul-tations via chat or telephone are already the norm among the industry giants. Some retailers issue pop-up warnings when customers order different sizes of the same piece of clothing; others set up CO₂ footprint accounts for each custom-er to achieve the same thing.Currently, the main reason people return things is that clothing sizes vary from one manufacturer to another. Nearly every brand has its own standards, and clothing and shoes are the most com-mon returns because they just don’t fit. So as they wait for the fashion industry to standardise sizes, online shops are de-veloping tools that allow them to individ-ually advise customers on which size to buy. They use models who try on cloth-ing from their range, process customer feedback about how the various sizes fit and compare this information with data from earlier purchases. Virtual dressing tools, which the Otto Group uses, for in-stance, are another way to help custom-ers find the right size: you specify your measurements and an avatar shows you how a particular piece of clothing would look on you. How to shop more sustainably online Don’t send things back Select what you want to buy carefully. Choose an online shop that provides detailed product descriptions or helps you find the right size based on earlier purchases. Bundle your purchasesMore parcels mean more deliveries – and higher CO₂ emissions. Be there to receive your parcel Don’t choose a specific time window and don’t select faster delivery options. This way, the delivery person can choose the best and most efficient route and load the van in such a way that as many parcels as possible fit in. Have the parcel sent to your office, to an automated parcel locker or to a neighbour if you can’t be home all day to receive the delivery. Choose a climate-friendly delivery option Choose the eco-option, if there is one, and have your parcel delivered by electric car or cargo bike. Buy sustainable productsFinally and most importantly: buy items with a small CO₂ footprint. It’s not hard to research manufacturing processes and materials online. The best and most convenient way is to choose an online shop that provides details of its materials and production processes on the website.11

I t’s a clear morning, the smell of autumn hangs in the air, earthy, damp, like windfall, like bonfires. The day before, Jochen Hartmann, 40, a farmer from Rettmer in Lüne- burg, northern Germany, gathered his crew to bring in the harvest. Tonnes and tonnes of potatoes are now safely stored away in the climate-controlled warehouse: €200,000 worth of potatoes in huge cage pallets stacked all the way up to the ceiling. Hartmann planted the seed potatoes with his machines in spring, watered the shoots and plants, protected them from pests and disease right the way up to the harvest, right up until he took the potatoes out of the soil. Out of the soil that has been giv- ing and giving for so many years: the first written mention of the estate is from the 14th century. Jochen Hartmann’s farm is a tightly organised business. It has to func- tion: it’s optimised, efficient. Beneath the pointed gable of the farmhouse, the hands of the clock set into the brick wall mark the passing of time, accurate to the minute. For decades now, Ursula Hartmann, the senior boss and Jochen Hartmann’s mother, has been serving lunch to the workers gathered round the big table in her kitchen on the dot of twelve. “We keep a careful eye on the time here,” she says. “We’re very particular about that.” The clock dictates the rhythm of the day. And the seasons structure the cycle of the year; spring, summer, autumn and winter determine when it’s time to sow and time to harvest, just as they have for decades, for centuries. The Hartmanns are the 19th generation of their family to farm this land. They grow grain, rapeseed, sugar beets and potatoes. And they keep chickens in a huge pen where they’re free to roam to their hearts’ content, under trees and in the meadow. Their eggs – like the chickens themselves, who are destined for roasting or soup – are sold in the pretty farm shop, along with rustic bread, fine liver sausage and egg pasta. “In 2020, demand for our free-range chickens doubled because of corona,” says Hartmann. “The pandemic increased people’s awareness, and the eggs were always sold out by lunchtime.” With his glasses, measured movements and calm voice, Jochen Hartmann seems more like a teacher or university lecturer than a farm- er. Like 88% of all German farmers, he runs his agricultural enterprise the convention- al way: intensively. He has 180 hectares of land, the equivalent of about 250 football fields. He uses fertilisers and pesticides. He has big fields, optimised to make max- imum use of the productive arable land. “That’s the only way a farmer can survive nowadays,” he says. And gets into his car. We set off for the fields right behind the farmhouse. He drives us around his huge property. “You need to get a yield out of every single square metre of soil.” To be profitable. But you need fallow land as well, as con- servationists keep telling us in ever louder voices. For biodiversity, for the farmland birds, insects, worms and plants that keep the ecosystem in balance and the soil healthy so that it can sequester lots of CO2. Biodiversity doesn’t thrive on huge, mono- tonous fields; it thrives in meadows, on the edges of fields, on embankments, in stone walls and hedges. Buffer strips and fields One-tenth of Hartmann’s farmland (in colour) is now a “field experiment”. Now birds like lapwings are nesting here. 13 that are farmed less intensively are vital for ground-nesting birds like partridges and skylarks, which are becoming increasing- ly rare because fallow land has virtually disappeared from the modern landscape. It’s almost non-existent in the highly opti- mised agriculture of the 21st century, be- cause profitability and wild meadows aren’t compatible, economy and ecology aren’t friends. And because price dumping makes it increasingly difficult for farmers to turn a profit. Conventional farmers are fighting back against the tougher rules on fertiliser and insect protection imposed by Germa- ny’s Ministry for the Environment. And the Minister of the Environment, Svenja Schulze of the Social Democratic Party, sympathises with the farmers’ protests: “When they’re being paid 69 cents for a li- tre of milk and knockdown prices for meat, it’s virtually impossible for farmers to pro- tect the environment, ensure clean drink- ing water and preserve biodiversity as well,” she says. To make things worse, the world market price for potatoes dropped rapidly in 2020 – corona made it almost impossible for people to get together, nobody was eat- ing chips – or French fries – because there were no parties, no open-air concerts, no local festivals and only very restricted ac- cess to leisure facilities. The price pressure is terrible for farmers. It’s only natural for them to try to get the maximum possible yield out of their fields when the harvest brings less and less money. Organic farms that make more gentle use of the soil only account for 12% of Ger- man agriculture. Even though the farming transformation, or the greening of agricul- ture, is a clearly defined political objective, it will take time. Time that is running out at breakneck speed. Not just for skylarks and lapwings, but for us humans too, because conventional farming has a significant im- pact on climate change. According to a Europe-wide mon- itoring scheme, the number of farmland bird species in Europe has declined by 56% since 1980. This figure, published by the European Bird Census Council, cor- responds more or less exactly to the >

Alpacas and mountain goats: the Hartmanns love trying new ideas on their farm

17 10 farms are trialling ways ... ... to combine conventional agriculture with nature conservation. an average of €800 per fallow hectare per year from F.R.A.N.Z. What’s so special about the project is that it doesn’t just bring the Federal Ministry for the Environment and Nature Conservation together with the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and combine ecological and socio-eco- nomic research. It also brings the German Farmers’ Association and NABU together – two players who have actually always been adversaries – and unites them in pursuit of a common goal. In the past, the roles of both sides were always clearly defined: the mighty Farmers’ Association represented conventional agriculture, while NABU saw itself in the role of Robin Hood, fighting for nature and organic farmers. And the protection of biodiversity has always been a particularly sensitive issue between the two: NABU criticises conventional agricul- ture for its major contribution to species decline, while the Farmers’ Association counters that its members have to make a profit somehow. In principle, there’s no reason why agri-environmental meas- ures financed by Germany’s federal states shouldn’t compensate farmers across the country for diminished crop yields and make conservation economically feasible for conventional farmers. But reliable num- bers are needed first: do the measures have a quantifiable impact? Does nature really benefit? With its ecological and socio-eco- nomic approach and long project duration of 10 years – until 2026 – F.R.A.N.Z. is sys- tematically investigating the real impact of the measures to promote biodiversity – not only in terms of conservation, but in terms of how they affect the operating practices of the participating farms as well. F.R.A.N.Z. pheasant!” Not to mention the beauty of the blooming meadow strips that prompts cyclists to stop and get off their bikes to take photos. But how did this turnaround come about? How can Hartmann suddenly afford to use 11% of his arable land for measures that promote biodiversity? The reason is F.R.A.N.Z. – a project that promotes the protection of biodiversity in agriculture that Hartmann’s farm is participating in. F.R.A.N.Z. (Future Resources, Agriculture and Nature Conservation) is a dialogue and demonstration project that was initiated by the Environmental Foundation Michael Otto and is jointly coordinated with the German Farmers’ Association. The accom- panying ecological research by the Michael Otto Institute of NABU (the Nature and Bi- odiversity Conservation Union, one of the oldest and largest environmental associa- tions in Germany), the University of Göt- tingen and the Thünen Institute of Biodi- versity examine the impact of the measures on flora and fauna, while the socio-eco- nomic research by the Thünen Institute of Rural Studies observes and analyses the funding policy framework and the Thünen Institute of Farm Economics focuses on the costs of the individual measures. The goal of the 10-year pilot project is to increase the diversity of species in Ger- many’s agricultural landscape – with the involvement of 10 conventional demon- stration farms. F.R.A.N.Z. promotes vari- ous nature protection measures that were developed together with the participating farmers, who receive assistance and ad- vice from their regional farmers’ associa- tions and cultural landscape foundations. F.R.A.N.Z. promotes a range of measures – fallow plots, wildflower areas, island plots for farmland birds, areas dedicated to the extensive farming of cereals like winter rye, winter wheat and spring barley, and non-intensely managed grassland – by compensating the farmers for loss of yield or any increased expenditure associated with implementation, such as machinery costs or seed: Jochen Hartmann receives is, quite literally, a field experiment. One that gets conservationists and conventional farmers to sit down round the same table. At this particular table in Hartmann’s large dining room, there are representatives of both parties: Hartmann, the convention- al farmer, and biologists Liesa Schnee and Laura Sutcliffe, members of the ecological research team from the University of Göt- tingen that’s accompanying the F.R.A.N.Z. project. Björn Rohloff is here too, from the Stiftung Kulturlandpflege, a foundation that promotes nature and landscape con- servation. The 10 farms participating in the project were selected by the Farmers’ Asso- ciation. The overall project is financed by the Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank (Ger- many’s development agency for agribusi- ness), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, as well as by the Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. Selected from across Germany, the par- ticipating farms were chosen in part be- cause they are typical of their region, and range in size from family businesses with 70 hectares of land all the way to what was once a state-owned Agricultural Produc- tion Cooperative in the former East Ger- many with 1,700 hectares. Every demon- stration farm receives support and advice for the implementation of the conservation measures, and once a year these meetings are hosted by the farmers on site. Hartmann, Schnee, Sutcliffe and Ro- hloff are taking a break for lunch; gathered round the big table, they’re enjoying the venison soup that Ursula Hartmann has just served up. It comes as no surprise to learn that Jochen Hartmann shot the deer himself. His mother takes a tray of herb ba- guette out of the oven, puts it on the table and refills the water glasses. It’s cosy here in the farmhouse dining room – and peace- ful. As everybody devours the soup and warm bread, there’s not a trace of the old antagonism between conservationists and conventional farmers. “This kind of team- work would have been unthinkable in the past,” says Hartmann, who is one of the >

Conservation and agriculture – for the Hartmanns, the two things now go together.

could be incorporated in environmental programmes at state level, even though the statistical analysis has not been completed yet. In the case of F.R.A.N.Z. wildflower strips that have been established for several years, for instance, the groups of organisms included in the research show a two- to three-fold increase in species diversity as compared to crop fields without such meas- ures. In relation to wild plants, that means an increase of 90%; among birds there has been a 200-300% rise, while the hare popu- lation has doubled. The F.R.A.N.Z. measure of growing “islands” of extensively farmed cereals within large maize fields as refuges for farmland birds has proved particularly effective for the skylark – the population density of this endangered species is now 7.5 times higher. F.R.A.N.Z. aims to use the testing and evaluation of measures like wildflow- er strips or windows of pea crops to gain insights that benefit both nature and the farmers. The learnings could help make the publicly funded agri-environmental meas- ures more effective and ensure farmers are appropriately remunerated for protecting biodiversity. “But the politicians have to understand what it’s all about too,” says Jochen Hartmann. “Protecting biodiversity is for the common good – but it happens on our land. That’s why the decline in yield has to be compensated for, as a matter of prin- ciple, not just now, within the F.R.A.N.Z. project.” In his opinion, it will eventually be the same story with regard to the CO2 sequestered in farmers’ land. That benefits the common good too, and the farmers should be compensated for it accordingly. How much CO2 the soil can store depends on the humus content, and sustainable farming and biodiversity have a measura- ble impact on the amount of humus. If, in the near future, a price label is attached to CO2 emissions, then those who store CO2 in agricultural land must be paid a price for doing so. These credits could then be sold as certificates on the stock exchange, for instance, as suggested by German agri- cultural magazine Agrarheute. In that way, protecting biodiversity, which increases the Runner beans now grow on farmer Jochen Hartmann’s experimental fields. humus content and results in higher CO2 storage capacity, might eventually be finan- cially worthwhile for farmers as well. Once the meeting is over and Sutcliffe, Schnee and Rohloff have said their good- byes, we go outdoors again, to the fields. It’s now late afternoon and the sun is bathing the land, the fields and the meadows in its milky autumn light. There are pumpkins lying on the black earth; here too, Hart- mann took a trial and error approach and grew the most unusual varieties he could find. The results are all sorts of shapes and sizes of squash, bright green, orange and glowing white; some have ridges, others are shaped like pointed hats or freckled, as if they were wearing collars, fancy trims and frills. Hilke and Jochen Hartmann’s son Tjark is playing in the field, he and his friend run off towards the chicken wood. That’s where we’re going next too. Hilke joins us. She enjoys experimenting just as much as her husband, and the chickens are her domain. They’re kept outdoors, be- tween the rows of trees. They have plenty of space to roam and sleep in the mobile hen- house, which is moved around at regular intervals to ensure the ground doesn’t be- come too contaminated with chicken ma- nure and help prevent the spread of disease. “The chickens love those rows of trees in the field over there. When they were suffer- ing from the heat in the hot summers we’ve had recently, they were able to stay in the 21 shade. But the soil loves the trees too,” says Hartmann. The practice of planting rows of trees on arable land in combination with field crops on the strips of land in between is known as alley cropping or agroforestry. Because their roots fix nitrogen and there- fore fertilise the soil, trees can regenerate the land and make it more productive. They also act as windbreaks, reduce erosion and keep the earth moist. The chicken wood has nothing to do with F.R.A.N.Z., but it’s typical of Hart- mann: he tries things out, doesn’t always stick to the familiar way of doings things and comes up with solutions that you’d be far more likely to associate with organic farming than conventional agriculture. “It’s important to be open to change,” says Hart- mann. If Tjark, Hartmann’s blond-haired son, should decide to follow in his father’s footsteps, he’ll be the 20th generation of the family to farm these 180 hectares. He’ll have to make his way in an industry that is confronting huge, radical change in the face of climate change. Hartmann stands in his autumn meadow. He’s optimistic. Hartmann has won various accolades for his commitment, including a Green Heart of Lower Saxony award for Project of the Year 2020 and the Sustainability Prize of a regional bank in 2019. He wants to use the money to plant more trees in the chicken wood. “And there’ll be enough left over to buy a few nest boxes for little owls and kes- trels,” he says. He’s expecting the new occu- pants to move in soon. And what about the other farmers who initially found it so hard to believe he was teaming up with NABU? Now they want to know how they can be part of F.R.A.N.Z. too. Because the project is caus- ing quite a buzz. And a lot of humming and chirping too. For more information go to: www.franz-projekt.de Umweltstiftung Michael Otto Glockengießerwall 26 20095 Hamburg, Germany Tel.: 040 6461-77 70 Email: info@umweltstiftungmichaelotto.com

FOR A BETTER WORLD A sunny afternoon in Berlin. Ranga Yogeshwar and Professor Dr Michael Otto meet for an interview that turns into a discussion on the great issues facing humanity. How can we stop climate change, how fair can the digital, global world be, what lessons can we learn from the corona pandemic?

“Why does it take so long for people to actually change their behaviour, Mr Yogeshwar?”

Otto: The reason the fight against climate change is making such slow progress is that it’s not perceived as an immediate threat. We’re focusing on other issues, like the coronavirus. It’s just like after the financial crisis and the euro crisis: as soon as the pandemic hit, there were loud voices saying we should put climate protection aside for the time being, because active climate protection means making investments. And yet now is precisely the right time to seize the chance and press ahead with the modernisation of the economy, to make it resilient to risks and climate-neutral. That also means seeing climate protection as a modernisation project for the economy and making it a business model. Climate protection shouldn’t be treated as something that we can only afford when times are good. And as for your assessment of consumption’s role: obviously it plays a decisive part when it comes to resources like energy, water and raw materials. But by itself, abstinence isn’t a solution either. That’s not the kind of message that would persuade people to behave sustainably. In my opinion, the solution lies in quality-driven consumption and latest studies show that the pandemic has made people more aware of products’ inner value and their own consumer behaviour. Quality-driven consump- tion has entered the mainstream. That’s why companies need to find a way to produce their goods more sustainably and present customers with corresponding offerings. Products have to last longer and be both repairable and recyclable. The goal must be a circular, quality-oriented economy. And I say it’s doable. THE SHOPPING PRINCIPLE UNDER SCRUTINY Yogeshwar: I’m not suggesting everybody should only have one sweater in their lifetime, I’m talking about the importance we attach to consumption in our lives. The German car indus- try spends around €1.5 billion a year on PR and marketing. All that just for the message: “You have to buy a car.” We’re being professionally seduced into buying things we don’t need, it nev- er stops. We’ve got our priorities wrong. I don’t share your hope that “business as usual” with lots of sustainability in production will do the trick. Otto: I’m not advocating that we should carry on as we are! Of course it would be ideal if people consumed consciously of their own accord, but we don’t have the time a change of mind like that would take. That’s why, in my opinion, we need regulation. The impact that a product’s manufacture and transport have on the environment has to be factored into the price. Take meat, for example: I don’t think that appealing to people to eat less meat because it’s healthy and good for the environment will change things quickly enough. Instead, we have to make ethical farming internationally binding and price it in. I know people will argue that meat will be much more expensive as a result. Of course it will – a lot more expensive, even. And you know what: that’s a good thing. When I was growing up, we only ever had a roast on Sundays. When I read that pigs are to be given one square metre more of pen space by 2040, I can only shake my head. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s nowhere near ambitious enough. 27 In many cases the sustainability message is also a message about abstinence. And in the long term, that’s not an easy message to sell. What might a positive sustainability message sound like? Otto: The message from the business world could be: sustaina- bility makes sense for all of us and the values we hold are guid- ed by the common good. But the final decision as to whether a fair, sustainable product, a meaningful product if you will, one that’s tied to values, will catch on or not – that decision lies with the customer. Yogeshwar: It has to be about the gains, about the benefits. Both in terms of awareness and, ultimately, time too. When I was growing up in India, it would have been inconceivable to imagine people spending their weekends strolling through town and going shopping. As if shopping were a value per se. I still find your attitude contradictory, Mr Otto. It’s as if there were two Ottos. One who’s been championing the environment for years, and another who gets to the end of the month and wonders how the sales figures are doing. To paraphrase Goethe: there are two souls dwelling in your chest, wouldn’t you say? Otto: No, just the one. And it’s convinced that the two things can be reconciled by practising sustainable business. That maxim probably won’t work in developing countries to begin with, because there it’s a question of meeting basic needs and achieving a certain degree of prosperity. That’s inevitably linked with quantitative growth. But here in Germany and other in- dustrialised countries, we need qualitative growth. Yogeshwar: Right, one good sweater is better than three poor-quality ones. But what are you doing about the consum- erist jingle that never stops playing in the streets of our cities? And only ever says: “Buying things makes you happy.” Otto: I understand what you’re saying. But as a company, we can’t change the entire market on our own. We can draw at- tention to things and act in our sphere of influence with all the passion and experience and strength of our Group. Yes, we’re big, but we’re not omnipotent. Yogeshwar: And if you were crowned “King of the German Business World” tomorrow, what would you do? Otto: I’d put an end to society’s throwaway mentality. With our group of companies, we pursue the goal of a circular, >

“Above all else, change requires hygiene in the way a society communicates.” Bio Ranga Yogeshwar Physicist Ranga Yogeshwar is possibly the best-known science journalist in Germany. Born in Luxembourg in 1959, he spent the first years of his life in India, his father’s native country. He studied experimental particle physics and astrophysics in Aachen before entering research, including a period at CERN in Geneva. In 1987 he began working as a science editor for public broadcasting company WDR in Cologne, where he developed numerous TV programmes and became a well-known presenter of shows like Quarks & Co. Most recently, he headed the science department at WDR. He has been an independent author and journalist since 2008. Yogeshwar’s bestselling books have been translated into many languages and won more than 60 prizes.

Time to discuss the future: Prof Dr Michael Otto and Ranga Yogeshwar at the Futurium in Berlin, a mixture of museum and indoor science adventure. limit the power of oil giants like Rockefeller. And I’m a passion- ate advocate of doing something similar about the big digital companies, because diversity is a quality in itself. 31 Otto: The monopolisation of data has to be stopped, I see it the same way as Mr Yogeshwar. But it goes without saying that, in the digital age, we in the Otto Group work with large quantities of data as well. Should we use that data? Yes, but for the customer’s benefit. How can we make sure that happens? Through transparency. We have to tell the customer what kind of data we have and why we have it. When it comes to handling customer data, we’re very different to Amazon. And in several other ways as well: Amazon has 30 million items in its assort- ment; they’re perfect at things like processing and logistics. But because of its size, Amazon can no longer respond to customers in an individual way. We do it differently. We’re much more ser- vice-oriented, which includes providing a personal, round-the- clock telephone service. We have our own delivery service that doesn’t just bring and connect your new washing machine, it takes the old one away and disposes of it sustainably as well. We have to shine a brighter spotlight on what sets us apart from the competition – like the fact that we’ve been making our product ranges more sustainable for many years now and monitor the supply chain for compliance with social and environmental standards. There’s something else I’d like to say about how we use data. Data helps us to personalise our offerings for custom- ers. The same way it used to be in a good, very personally run boutique. When Mrs Smith came in, the sales assistant would say: “Hello Mrs Smith, the new collection has just arrived. I’ve put a couple of things aside for you – I know what you like.” That’s the kind of thing you can do nowadays when you use data in a responsible way. Yogeshwar: In your case, I have no doubt that you are hand- ling data in a decent way. But the point I’m making is about something else: market dominance through data. Google Maps just turned 16 and has achieved a market-dominating position because nobody has the other maps on their radar any more. The maps show restaurants, including reviews. And God help you if the reviews aren’t good. That’s surveillance capitalism, the purpose of which is to influence people’s behaviour with the help of data. We need to get a lot better at defending ourselves against that. KNOWLEDGE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION Can acting ethically be a competitive advantage for companies? Yogeshwar: I don’t think that complying with ethical norms alone will be enough to survive economically over the next > consistent basic understanding of the most important aspects of digitalisation. These days we don’t need any staff for catalogue marketing because the catalogues are being phased out. We need experts in online marketing. And it wouldn’t make any sense at all to replace our experienced employees. Retraining them is the path we’ve chosen. It’s important to eliminate peo- ple’s fears about losing their job or being out of their depth. Mr Yogeshwar, among other things your latest book is about the consequences of digitalisation, and you quote former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” By “we”, he means a global cor- poration that gathers data. What happens when a small number of companies gather so much knowledge about their customers? Yogeshwar: The first thing that happens is that monopolies establish themselves. We have to ensure that companies like the Otto Group are protected. Because they can be as agile as they like, but in the end the winner takes it all. And from a global perspective, the winner is more likely to be Amazon than Otto. In my opinion, we need something along the lines of compe- tition legislation that’s specifically designed to prevent data monopolies. A hundred years ago, we used competition laws to

“ We should take responsibility for one another, Dr Otto. In the end, perhaps everything revolves around just one word: empathy.”

35 WHEN Cotton farmers in Zambia used to barely earn enough from the harvest to live on. Then, in 2005, Prof Dr Michael Otto started Cotton made in Africa, a sustainable initiative that not only improves yields but protects the environment too. AFRICA BLOOMS

Cotton seed on the way to the field. The farmers procure the seed from the same company that later buys and exports their cotton. Farmers don’t pay for the seed until after the harvest, which means they don’t have to take out loans. 37 Today is a special day because yesterday it rained for the first time in months. For Wisdom, that means the start of a new season, a new beginning for which she thanked God in her morning prayers. She doesn’t linger beneath the fig tree for long. The way to her field leads through an arid landscape. The bushes and the few scarce trees look like skeletons. The rain- water must have drained away quickly into the cracked earth. When Wisdom says everything will be green a few days from now, it’s hard to believe. Her eldest son is waiting in the field with a pair of oxen hitched up to a plough. When the rainy season begins, it’s time to sow the seeds. The plough makes a straight furrow in the earth. Wisdom and the two women from the neighbourhood who are helping her today walk slowly behind the plough, their backs bent, eyes on the ground and the sun beating down on the backs of their necks. Wisdom begins by shaking fertiliser onto the soil, a mixture Wisdom and her neighbours sowing seeds. Thanks to the new farming meth- ods Wisdom has learned, she doesn’t need nearly as many pesticides and the yield is still higher than it used to be. containing minerals such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Not a lot, “just a bottle cap full for each plant hole”, she explains. One of the women behind her scatters three or four cotton seeds on top. The third woman uses a hoe to cover the seeds with a little bit of soil. They repeat this every 30cm or so. The furrows them- selves lie about 90cm apart. These distanc- es are important, Wisdom says. Just like the small number of seeds. In the past, they used to sow many more, she says, “But if the plants are too close together they just end up competing for nutrients.” It’s sweaty work, all season long. Once a year, Wisdom treats herself to the luxury of a tractor. Very few people in this area own one themselves. Shortly after each year’s harvest, she hires a tractor to plough under the old stalks and stems that remain lying in the field. Over the next months they rot, enriching the soil with nutrients. No sooner is the last season over than preparation for the new one begins. >

Group’s Advisory Board, who launched the Aid by Trade Foundation and with it, the Cotton made in Africa initiative. When the first shoots appear roughly one week after planting, Wisdom begins checking the cotton plants almost daily be- cause they grow very fast. She pulls out the weaker plants so that the stronger ones get more nutrients, and she keeps an eye out for pests. Aphids can become a problem as soon as the leaves appear; they suck the juice out of them with their proboscis. The other big threat in this part of Zambia comes from the cotton bollworm, says John Tembo, an agronomist and the man in charge of Alliance Ginneries’ business in Zambia. The name bollworm is misleading because the pest is actually a caterpillar. It eats the leaves of the cotton plant and es- pecially the bolls or seed capsules, the same part of the plant that farmers like Wisdom want to harvest. Cotton plants bloom after just a few weeks, and in the spot where the blossoms die, green bolls form, which burst open when they’re ripe to reveal the fruit, the actual cotton: pale, almost white fibres that cling to the shrub and, unsurprisingly, look and feel just like cotton wool balls. If the fibres aren’t har- vested, they eventually detach themselves and are carried off by the wind, which dis- tributes the seeds hidden between them across great distances. A bollworm can eat up to 12 bolls a day, says John Tembo, i.e. the majority of what a cotton plant produces. Once the caterpillar, which can grow up to 4cm long, has eaten its fill, it buries itself in the earth to pupate. When the following rainy season comes along, it emerges from the pupa as a moth, which lays its eggs on the stems and leaves of the newly sprouted cotton plants. The caterpillars hatch and the cycle begins all over again. In the past, Wisdom used to spray chemical pesticides on the cotton plants the moment they poked their heads out of the ground. It’s what her parents did and what her neighbours still do. Not on a needs ba- sis, but regularly, every other week. They 39 called it “calendar spraying”. Wisdom didn’t use to wear protective clothing either, and after she finished spraying, she sometimes felt as if she had the flu. Few plants in the world are sprayed with pesticides and insecticides as often as cotton, which is particularly susceptible, especially to infestation by insects, and is often grown on very large areas of land. Monocultures are considered to be mag- nets for pests. These days, Wisdom still uses chem- icals, but now she wears a dust mask, gog- gles and rubber gloves. She doesn’t feel ill afterwards either. And before she reaches for a pesticide, she checks to make sure it’s really needed. She counts the number of pests on each plant to see if they have ex- ceeded critical levels. If the infestation is less severe, she uses organic pesticides. Employees of Alliance Ginneries taught her how to make them. One of the plants is found locally, on her farm even, so she doesn’t have to grow it: solanum incanum, also known as thorn apple, is a species of nightshade native to the countries of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a bush that bears a yellow fruit about the size of a mirabelle plum, which Wisdom dries and pounds with a mortar and pestle. She mixes the resulting powder with water and sprays it on her cotton plants. Using chilli peppers is another possibility, says John Tembo, as they ward off pests in a similar way. Wisdom says she now only uses about half the chemical pesticides that she used to in the past. This saves her money too, because solanum incanum doesn’t cost anything. Crop rotation, economical sowing, organic pesticides – is that all it takes? No, says Wisdom. The decisive factor for de- termining a good harvest or a bad one, prosperity or poverty, is the weather. Her field is only watered when it rains. If the rainfall is spread evenly across the long rainy period from November to May, she can harvest up to 1,000kg of cotton from a hectare of land. Everything has to fall into place. In the 2018 to 2019 season, > John Tembo trains farmers for Alliance Ginneries, teaching them the new, more effective growing methods. He later takes delivery of the harvest. The money returns to Africa Cotton grown according to the Cotton made in Africa standard is traded worldwide. Then it’s made into textiles, for which compa- nies and brands pay a licensing fee. The Cotton made in Africa initiative uses this money to fund training programmes and commu- nity projects in Africa.

fully recovered, and to this day, she walks a bit stiffly and somewhat bow-legged. During the 2019 to 2020 season, Wisdom was responsible for 19 farmers, who she educated about things like the importance of the right root depth and how to deal with the cotton bollworm. Thanks to people like Wisdom, Alliance Ginneries has been able to provide basic training to around 31,000 farmers and has contracts with nearly 40,000. That’s slightly more than 10% of all cotton farmers in Zambia. It’s difficult to measure how effective such training really is. At the end of the day, as John Tembo also says, it’s the rain that ultimately determines how the har-vest turns out. And that’s why he consid-ers climate change to be one of the biggest threats to Zambia’s cotton industry. At least for Wisdom, the efforts of Alliance Ginneries have paid off. She’s been able to expand her farm with the money she earned from growing cotton, and now plants aubergines and tomatoes for herself and her sons. She keeps chick-ens and pigeons, has 14 cows and recent-ly acquired 40 goats, which she co-owns together with several women from the neighbourhood. Supported by Alliance Ginneries, the Aid by Trade Foundation covered the cost of purchasing the live-stock. “It gives families more sources of income and makes them less dependent on the harvest,” John Tembo explains. Unlike so many farmers in sub- Saharan Africa who migrate to the city in the hope of finding a better life, Wisdom can’t imagine leaving. “A farmer’s work is good,” she says. “Here, I have fresh air and fresh food. The only people who benefit from the city are those with an education.”If things go as planned, Wisdom wants her sons to be able to decide one day between the country and the city. She’s saving money so that they can fulfil the dream she had as a young women – and attend university. The raw cotton arrives in Kafue in bags, after which it is cleaned and deseeded. For more information go to: www.cottonmadeinafrica.org/enYou’ll also find a variety of videos about the inititative and an overview of all the projects that Cotton made in Africa has made possible.41

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All together now Can we make the world a better place together? These Otto Group employees didn’t wait to be asked, they just got started. Twenty-three small projects that make a big difference. Illustrations: ROMINA ROSA Words: JOCHEN PIOCH

Hermes points the way “How should companies get involved? By holding up a cheque for the cameras once a year? We think there’s a better way. Lisa did her master’s thesis on the way firms form lasting partner- ships with charities. At Hermes today, we combine theory with practice by sharing our knowledge and expertise with Hanseatic Help, an association that supports homeless people and refugees. We put out collection boxes, encourage colleagues to donate clothing and everyday items, and provide contacts for those who want to work as corporate volunteers. Even during the corona lockdown, we still managed to fill lots of pallets with donated items. And many of us volunteer our time and skills outside of work. Marc, for instance, gives talks, sharing his logistics expertise: When I send a relief shipment, how do I secure it? How do I get clothing and other donated items across the ocean? This way, we bring supply and demand together.” Lisa Femerling, 28, Social Responsibility & Compliance Manager, Hermes, Hamburg Marc von der Fecht, 48, Head of Procurement, Hermes, Hamburg “Thanks to the wifi connection, employees can book the garden as a meeting room.” A garden to be proud of “When we built the first plots behind our office building and started planting organic tomatoes, zucchinis and peppers, it was a project for associates who enjoy gardening for their own supply. Eleven years later, it’s now a full-fledged community garden with trees, a lounging area and a fence to keep away deer, raccoons and rabbits. Thanks to the wifi connection, employees can book it as a meeting room. We’ve also become more community orientated and donated 160kg of fresh vegetables to our local food bank last year. It’s been a good journey and we are very proud of our garden.” J. Mattes, Product Regulatory Coordina- tor, Crate and Barrel, Northbrook, Illinois Perseverance pays “For years, I’ve been advocating the use of sustainable paper at Baur. Our customers still rely heavily on printed advertising material, which we produce in large print runs, but our aim is to do it with as little impact on the environment as possible. Three years ago, we set ourselves the goal of printing all our mailings on FSC®-certified paper. Meanwhile, we’ve managed 99.9% – the remainder will follow soon.” Thomas Schwarzmeier, 54, Team Leader Production & Sup- port, Baur, Burgkunstadt, Bavaria

59 For more about our commitment to sustainability go to: www.ottogroup.com/responsibility

When young people suddenly want to play the violin and get excited about Bach, it’s a sign that The Young ClassX music project is working. Because music can change people’s lives. de to joy61

And who’s that? It’s Angelina Alberg. Her gift for singing was discovered at her school and she’s been part of The Young ClassX choir programme ever since. But what’s perhaps more important: music has helped the 12-year-old girl to feel good about herself and thrive.

pletely free and all my worries disappear.” Every once in a while, she starts singing without even noticing it. Like when she’s having trouble with her homework, when her head is buzzing and her body needs to surrender control for just a minute. There’s something magical about the way Angeli-na talks about singing. She’s fully focused, as if electrified. And at the same time far away, as though the music were resound-ing in her thoughts. Angelina’s smartphone blinks to an-nounce the arrival of a WhatsApp mes-sage. The Youngster Ensemble group has lots to discuss: When’s the next rehearsal, which songs still need work? When you sing with The Young ClassX, you be-come part of a special community. The Youngster Ensemble in particular brings together children from different areas of Hamburg who would probably never meet otherwise. “In the beginning it was weird, but we soon made friends through the music. In a choir, everyone’s OK the way they are,” says Angelina, and you can tell that she’s talking about herself as well. It’s OK to be quiet and inhabit your own world. “Nobody laughs if you hit the wrong note. We help each other in-stead.” These days, she volunteers for solos without hesitating for a moment. Know-ing that others will notice her mistakes doesn’t scare her any more. It makes her strong. And then, weeks later, in February 2020, the big moment in the Laeiszhalle concert hall finally arrives, a mellow rendition of What a Feeling just before the finale. An-gelina is quiet and composed again. Then her clear, velvety voice soars above the oth-er voices, which merge into a quiet hum. In the orchestra, Nima picks up his violin, ready for the conductor’s cue. The final note subsides and there they stand, the girl from Hamburg and the boy from Tehran. Angelina will throw herself into her moth-er’s arms after the concert. Nima will think about his parents and send pictures.This moment belongs to the two of them alone. They have both travelled far, cross-ing borders and boundaries. Here they stand, united by what they love: music. The initiators The Youngster Ensemble is more than a choir for Angelina. It’s a community where everyone’s OK the way they are.The Young ClassX universe is big and col-ourful. The youth music project co-sponsored by the Otto Group and the chamber ensemble Salut Salon introduces children and young people to classical music and supports their musical education, regardless of their social background. It offers free music lessons to those who wish to learn a musical instrument and sponsors school choirs around Hamburg. Exceptionally talented young people can join the Youngster Ensemble choir or the renowned Felix Mendelssohn Youth Orchestra. Over the past 11 years, the multiple-award-winning pro-ject consisting of four modules has supported around 30,000 children and young people in grades 5 to 13 at more than 100 schools. Then the pandemic struck, and for most of 2020, the possibilities for making music together were limited. Even so, by maintaining safe distances and meeting in small groups, the youth orchestra was able to continue rehears-ing. School pupils and university students like Nima Asadollahi Ali, who teach children and young people to play an instrument on a vol-untary basis, had to teach online some of the time. Individual school choirs could rehearse if the school had a room big enough and everyone followed the rules. Other choirs took a break, like the Youngster Ensemble where Angelina Alberg sings. No one working for The Young ClassX was furloughed. Alexander Birken, CEO of the Otto Group, who is also co-founder of The Young ClassX, was very clear at the beginning of the pandemic when he said: “Everybody keeps working, all the more so during a crisis.” Behind the scenes, new concepts had to keep being developed, only to be discarded again and replaced with the next. In December, Sounds like X was launched – a digital stage for The Young ClassX featuring living room concerts, clips of actual performances and tutorials on how to tune a musical instrument. Music brings people together – even at a time like this. For more information go to:www.theyoungclassx.de You’ll find concert dates and a video interview with Nima Asadollahi Ali CONTACTBianca NasserManaging Directorbianca.nasser@theyoungclassx.deInsa MüllerManaging Directorinsa.mueller@theyoungclassx.deTel.: 040-414 33 42 7065

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“People who worked near the building told me: it was like an earthquake.” Ashraf Ul Islam 69 Thea Hoffmann, Rubana Huq, Director Global Quality and Compliance, President, Bangladesh Garment Manufac- Otto International, Hong Kong turers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Dhaka Michael Dumke: It wasn’t a typical factory building that collapsed but a commer- cial one that accommodated shops and a bank, plus several floors of garment factories. It wasn’t built to hold so much heavy machinery. For us, it was important to find out whether we were producing garments in similar build- ings. To gain an initial overview, we immediately contacted our suppliers through our office in Dhaka. Shortly afterwards, we sent engineers over from Hong Kong to inspect our local production sites. Ashraf Ul Islam: There’s a lot we can monitor. And we were doing that even before the disaster at Rana Plaza. But it’s also a matter of trusting the authorities. We’ve had regulations to deal with things like that in place since 2006. Most of the earlier laws dated from colonial times, before the garment industry existed. the Otto Group. In China, for instance, the rules are much tighter and the oversight is stricter. China has lots of space and tends to build single-storey factories rather than several on top of each other like at Rana Plaza. In the hours and days that followed, the rescuers consisted chiefly of neighbours and other workers who put themselves at great risk trying to free people from the rubble and searching for survivors. Many of them would later criticise the soldiers and professional rescue teams for not doing enough to help those whose moans and cries could still be heard. Nazma Akter: We union leaders immedi- ately sat down and began to arrange meetings with local people and the international community. We wanted to find out what had happened as quickly as possible. And we helped out by taking care of the donations. Thea Hoffmann: At the time of the disaster, we had auditors in local factories checking compliance. They were mostly concerned with working conditions and incidences of child labour, not so much with the structural quality of the buildings. After Rana Plaza, we started thinking about and analysing the situation in factories in other countries that produce goods for Ashraf Ul Islam: We spent the following days glued to the television, watching the rescue efforts unfold. Every day, we saw bodies pulled out of the rubble, but also people who were still alive. If I remember correctly, they even found someone still alive after 17 days. Most of the people searching through the wreckage were local garment workers. They didn’t have any training, they were just helping. Five months before Rana Plaza, on 24 November 2012, a fire broke out in the Tazreen factory in the north of Dhaka. Unable to get out because the emergency doors were obstructed or locked, 112 people died and more than 200 were injured. Nazma Akter: We were able to do a lot at Rana Plaza because we had started improving conditions in the garment industry after the fire in November. I knew from experience how bad things still were in many of the factories. When we protested the conditions, I was beaten by police and blacklisted. But even if Tazreen was only five months earlier, we couldn’t have imagined that an entire building would collapse. Ashraf Ul Islam: Sometimes, as evidently happened in Tazreen, there are misunderstandings between managers and workers. A fire alarm is triggered. Often, it’s a false alarm. Managers aren’t trained to evacuate people every time, false alarm or not. And then if the doors are blocked, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. Rubana Huq: The fire in Tazreen was terrible, no question. And Rana Plaza was worse. But Bangladesh isn’t the only country where awful things like this occur. Nobody talks about that. >

Making garments in Dhamrai, where working conditions are now regulated by the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. basic changes needed to prevent children from working in its factories, we terminate the contract. We require factories to concern themselves with these children’s schooling. And we check to make sure a child isn’t sent back to work. In other areas, we require improvements within a set time frame and follow up. Michael Dumke: Fundamental violations are immediately followed by a conversa- tion with the factory owner, in which we insist that they be remedied and never reoccur. In other instances, we set deadlines and check that they’ve been adhered to. If not, our contractual agreement comes to an end. Thea Hoffmann: There are two parts to the auditing process these days. Social auditing is done according to interna- tional standards and usually takes place once a year. On average, an audit is completed in a single working day, but it all depends on the size of the operation. An important part of the inspection process is visiting a factory unan- nounced. Two auditors drive to the factory on the list. One goes to the front door while the other stands guard at the The Bangladesh garment Industry More than 5,000 companies produce garments in Bangladesh. They employ over 4 million people, 80% of them women. The garment industry is one of the country’s main economic sectors. The export volume stands at 80% and is valued at $40 billion. Since the beginning of the garment industry boom about 20 years ago, Bangladesh’s share of global garment manufacturing has risen every year. Today it’s the biggest garment manufacturer for the EU after Chi- na. Nearly all the big international brands produce clothing in Bangladesh, especially European companies such as Adidas, H&M, Inditex (including Zara), Metro, Tchibo, C&A and the Otto Group. Bengali Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus considers working conditions in Bangladesh very difficult and is critical of the low pay. Nevertheless, he’s convinced that the gar- ment industry offers women in Bangladesh a unique opportunity to free themselves from family constraints and escape poverty. back, just in case. We look at the personnel files and the payroll, walk through the factory and talk to the workers. If anything arouses their suspicion, the auditors carefully double-check. In addition, the factories are inspected by international, inde- pendent external auditing firms. The auditors working for Otto Interna- tional don’t just inspect factories where the Otto Group procures its goods, they also perform audits for other internation- al companies. Michael Dumke: Factory owners have meanwhile developed a completely different awareness of the issues. At least the ones we work with. If a manufacturer refuses to cooperate, they can probably still work for Russian or Chinese customers or the local market. There are about 5,000 garment manufac- turers in Bangladesh. They employ some 4 million people. Not all the business owners are happy with the new standards, the inspections and the associated costs. Some of them dodge the rules by illegally employing subcontractors: a factory signs a contract with an international >

Although wages are low, working in the factories can help women escape poverty, says Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. those found in many factories around the world. Michael Dumke: The main reason we went to Bangladesh initially was because of the price, of course. That’s no longer the case. The articles produced there are elaborate. So we’re also interested in the quality that Bangladesh produces. Rubana Huq: We have to ensure the same standards for the entire production chain around the world. The absence of similar standards and the corresponding monitoring makes it difficult for us to remain competitive, and many leading manufacturers deny outsiders access to their premises. Headline news from Bangladesh is always negative. It seems like we’re always the target, presumably because our economy is so dependent on the garment industry. That’s definitely not fair. Michael Dumke: My impression is that, in Bangladesh and India in particular, some suppliers take their responsibility very seriously. Others have certainly only bowed to the pressure because they’d have had to close otherwise. But the first “We need wag- es that people can live on.” Nazma Akter group do what they do out of a sense of conviction. In June 2020, the RMG Sustainability Council (RSC), a national organisation, took charge of the Accord’s local operations in Bangladesh. Led by retailers, unions and members of the national garment industry, all of whom have an equal say, the RSC continues to create safe working conditions in line with the Accord. Ashraf Ul Islam: The standards haven’t changed – the RSC carries out fire safety, electrical and structural inspections just as before. We have a good setup on the ground and can monitor inspections with our own team. This is a big advantage for the Otto Group. But as in many other countries, we also have to deal with corruption. That’s why having the Accord and international supervi- sion is so important and so helpful. Rubana Huq: Unlike the original Accord, the new committee has six of our producers on it. We’re convinced that the garment industry should be part of it, because we’re part of the intended reforms too. Instead of having rules and regulations imposed from above, the stakeholders are collaborating for the benefit of everybody involved. Nazma Akter: I’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic right now, I’m just waiting to see what happens. Union work is still very difficult. But our government understands our concerns and wants to improve women’s lives. For non-government organisations (NGOs), a particular concern is that garment manufacturers will increasingly pressure the government to do less. Their argument: the garment industry is responsible for 80% of the country’s exports, so manufacturers wield enor- mous influence. And the fear is that they will try to lower standards in the garment factories. Rubana Huq: Our members are above reproach. Working with the Accord and Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety >

75 Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh The unprecedented agreement between the international trade unions Industri- All and Uniglobal and 200 international fashion companies was prompted by the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza build- ing in April 2013. The Accord’s shared objective was to create sustainable work- ing conditions in the garment industry. Each company, in cooperation with the Accord’s management, obliges their sup- pliers to eliminate shortcomings in their factories. An Accord body, financed by the companies, was set up in Bangladesh to this end. Over the following years, it independently monitored safety condi- tions and other aspects in well over 1,000 garment factories. In 2018, the agreement was replaced by a Transition Accord in preparation for a possible transfer of responsibility to a national monitoring body. In 2020, with the responsible parties in Bangladesh on board, a national RMG Sustainability Council (RSC) was founded, a joint body led by retailers, trade unions and, this time, the manufacturers themselves. The goal of the RSC is to continue the Right now, we don’t know what will happen. Thea Hoffmann: Suppliers have been under increasing pressure ever since the pandemic began. We have a good relationship with our local suppliers and they appreciate the benefits of a long-term business partnership. So particularly in difficult times like these, we’re working together closely, focusing on the ways corona is affecting individual workers, supporting processes to protect them and suggesting measures that will reduce the risk of infection. According to a World Bank study, many conditions for garment workers have improved since the Rana Plaza catas- trophe, but not all and not everywhere. “We will insist that the stand- ards agreed to are upheld.” work and the achievements of the Accord Thea Hoffmann long term and to implement an industry standard in Bangladesh in accordance with global safety criteria. By the end of 2020, some 1,650 produc- tion sites had been monitored by roughly 38,000 safety inspections. More than 90% of the violations have been reme- died to date. Nearly 600 factory safety committees and over 1.8 million workers have received training. The independent, confidential complaints system intro- duced has so far been used by 1,300 workers to report safety shortcomings or instances of discrimination. The Otto Group has been a member of the Accord’s steering committee since 2015 and is now also on the board of the RSC. Ashraf Ul Islam: We still don’t have regulations governing workplace accidents. Many workers complain that they aren’t adequately protected if they fall ill or have an accident. That’s why we’d like the ILO’s Employment Injury Benefits Convention to apply here. Serious accidents can always occur. Once, many years ago, when a fire broke out at the factory where I was working, I had a lucky escape myself. Nazma Akter: European and US companies should be paying fair prices. They’re getting good quality for very little money, after all. If you ask me, the minimum wage should be $200 a month. Michael Dumke: Some people are under the misconception that if an article of clothing costs a lot it means it was produced under favourable conditions. And that if you buy cheap clothing, you’re partly responsible for the poor conditions in the factories. The truth is that a garment worker receives the same pay regardless of whom they’re producing something for. So if you want to buy responsibly, you have to look carefully at what a company does. The Otto Group began getting involved with working conditions in manufacturing facilities 30 years ago. In Bangladesh too, we’ve contributed to improved standards at our suppliers’ factories. We ceased doing business with two factories when that proved impossible. Thea Hoffmann: Bangladesh’s government ought to do a lot more. And it’s up to consumers too. They’re the ones who decide how much they’re willing to spend on a pair of jeans or a T-shirt, and who they buy them from. If they shopped more conscientiously, for instance, and only chose brands that care about working conditions in the countries of production, it would have a positive impact. Consum- ers have to (re)gain respect for the manufacturing process and the product they’re buying. Rubana Huq: It all comes down to sustainability. And platforms like Better Buying are making an important contribu- tion in that respect. They evaluate companies, publish reports and share them with everyone. If our national companies are expected to buy better cotton, make our suppliers transparent and make everything we do more visible, it can’t just be a one-sided effort. International brands have to make their buying practices transparent too, as far as possible. And consumers have to stick together to make that happen. Thea Hoffmann: We’re working harder to increase supply chain transparency, in Bangladesh too. And at the very least, we want the standards of the past few years to be complied with and preferably improved wherever possible. In a country that’s already suffering the effects of climate change – widespread flooding during the monsoon season, for instance – we have to concern ourselves with environmental factors as well. Where and how can we save energy? What happens to the wastewater? What dyes do our suppliers use? When it comes to issues like these, all the stakeholders in the supply chain have an important role to play. The government is also called upon to create a legal framework that supports improvements in environmental protection.

Photography: AXEL MARTENS Interview: NINA HIMMER 77 “NO ONE CAN SAVE THE WORLD BY THEMSELVES” The man rolling up his sleeves here is Dr Tobias Wollermann. He’s a musi- cian, a physicist and the Otto Group’s new Chief Sustainability Officer. His task is to make the group of companies with its 52,000 employees more sus- tainable. Where does he start? And how does he resolve the conflict between profit motive and ethical consumption?

“SUSTAINABILITY HAS TO BE PART OF ALL OF OUR PROCESSES, IT HAS TO PERMEATE EVERY DEPARTMENT.”

For more on the Otto Group’s commitment to sustainability go to: www.ottogroup.com/en uniform. This is certainly something that still needs work, and we’re putting a great deal of effort into finding industry-wide solutions that don’t overwhelm our sup-pliers and are as effective as possible. This is something we are quite happy to communicate because our main objective is transparency and credibility. Speaking of credibility: a year ago, German climate activist Luisa Neubauer was offered a job by Siemens, which she turned down. Would the Otto Group have fared as badly? We’re lucky to have many ecologically aware, super-smart young people working for the Group, including many women. We’ve been dealing with the topics of sustainability, ecology and the environment for more than 30 years, so we have a long tradition on which to build, shored up by facts, figures and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The Fridays for Future activists are demanding strict-er climate protection laws. You, on the other hand, once said: “Governments should motivate people and companies rather than treating them like children.” Is saving the world really something we should leave up to companies?No one can save the world by themselves, not even com-panies. We’ve had good experiences with alliances and initiatives made up of people from industry, civil society and politics. We co-founded the Brussels-based BSC Initi-ative, we’re active members of Germany’s Partnership for Sustainable Textiles and we’re a signatory to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. We’re also in-volved with the Cotton made in Africa initiative through our Aid by Trade Foundation and within the framework of Foundation 2° – German Businesses for Climate Protection, which was co-founded by Prof Dr Otto. These alliances are often more effective than government regu-lation because industries know their own processes best and government regulation results in a lot of bureaucratic hurdles. But we naturally also need statutory provisions to create an equal playing field for all participants in the market. These shouldn’t be limited to Germany, either. In short, we need global solutions. Anything else is doomed to fail. Would your 14-year-old self have taken to the streets with the Fridays for Future movement?Definitely. And now for the litmus test: Do you practice what you preach with regard to sustainable living? It’s more a Greta test these days, isn’t it? Since I took the job, lots of people have been wondering: Will this guy live by the same standards he sets for the company? I’ve certainly been trying to for many years, using green energy and public transport, not travelling by plane within Germany, buying food that’s in season and grown regionally, mostly from farm shops and at farmers’ markets. I’m definitely not a fashion junkie either, just ask my wife! I’d rather ask her if there’s anything else you could be doing. I can tell you that myself: I could eat less meat and fish or pay more attention to the quality and source of everyday products. And then there’s the matter of my company car. At least it has an electric vehicle number plate … Although that’s not exactly uncontroversial, is it?Electric cars are just a step along the way. But an important one, because the main thing is to leave the combustion engine behind. Five years from now, chances are that some-thing else will be leading the way. Hydrogen, for instance. The automotive industry is in a test and experimentation phase just like the rest of us. Some things will catch on, others won’t. But first you need the courage to just go ahead and do it. “THE CURRENT MOMENTUM HAS POTENTIAL FOR A GENUINE PARADIGM SHIFT.”The change is most painful at the point where economic viability and sustainability collide.81

A d a t e w i t h E l o n M u s k Fo r m a n y p e o p l e , t h e l ea p i n to t h e d i g i ta l a ge ca n se e m f r i g h te n i n g a t f i rst . A n d t h a t ’s h a rd l y s u r p r i s i n g : h ow ’s i t a l l s u p p ose d to wo r k? B l o c kc h a i n? A r t i f i c i a l i n te l l i ge n ce? T h a n ks to a revo l u t i o n a r y l ea r n i n g i n i t i a t i ve , t h e e m p l oye es o f t h e O tto G ro u p a re n ’ t j u st ge tt i n g a cq u a i n te d w i t h t h e d i g i ta l f u t u re i n a c l eve r, h u m a n - ce n t r i c way, t h ey ’ re a l so b e i n g i nv i te d to p l ay a ro l e i n s h a p i n g t h a t f u t u re . S o w h a t ’s t h e t h i n k i n g b e h i n d i t ? Rea d o n . . . 83 Illustrations: CLAUDIA MEITERT Words: OSKAR SIMON encounters I t’s an early Monday afternoon in February 2020 when Andreas Schaffarczyk Elon Musk for the first time. Schaf- farczyk works at the Hückelhoven logis- tics centre, a Hermes parcel hub with a 300-strong workforce not far from the German-Dutch border where more than 65 million packages are sent on their way every year. A native of the area, Schaf- farczyk is a keen amateur golfer and cycling enthusiast and has tattoos of a skull and crossbones, billiard balls and the date when he met his wife on his forearms. At the logistics centre, he’s re- sponsible for sealing the standard freight containers known as swap bodies; he’s also a member of the Works Council and has just become a father again. Even so, today the 51-year-old is making time to listen to the founder of PayPal and Tesla. After all, says Schaffarczyk, “Musk has achieved a lot in life; I’m sure I can learn something from what he has to tell me.” Logistics centre worker Andreas Schaffarczyk was interested, but sceptical too. Today he says the learning programme was simply “amazing”. And he’s right: on this Monday after- noon, Schaffarczyk hears how the excep- tional entrepreneur is reimagining entire industries. He learns what disruption means and what Elon Musk under- stands by it and why you should tackle stagnating sectors if you really want to change something. Once the founder of multiple companies has taken his leave, Schaffarczyk makes a few notes. Then he closes his laptop, reaches for his handheld scanner and sets to work: he’s on late shift today. A great many encounters like the one between Andreas Schaffarczyk and Elon Musk took place in the Otto Group last Susanne Kertelge, Corporate Responsibility Lead Society, was convinced that it’s essential to include all employees in the digital change process. year. They’re part of a comprehensive lifelong learning initiative by the name of TechUcation, which the Group has launched with the aim of taking itself and its workforce on an express journey into the digital age. A journey which, if all goes well, will result in curiosity and enthusiasm rather than fatigue and dis- enchantment. But that’s not all: the ini- tiative is aimed at the entire workforce, from warehouse workers all the way to the Executive Board. It involves nothing less than a complete digital update for a group of companies that’s worth billions and has approx. 52,000 employees in more than 30 countries across the globe. And if Susanne Kertelge is to be believed, it’s the only way forward. “Over the last few years we’ve repeat- edly asked ourselves: As an organisation, are we really capable of reacting fast enough and changing sufficiently to ac- tively shape the digital transformation?” says the Otto Group’s Corporate Respon- sibility Lead Society. “If not: How do we go about shaping a cultural change that challenges and encourages us to rethink the ways we work and behave? And above all: How can we make sure we really do take all colleagues along with us on this journey?” A lot of companies are asking themselves similar questions right now. The answers tend to be sobering. Although 90% of the German business world sees digi- talisation as positive across the board, the majority nevertheless rates their own company’s digital transformation status as, at best, satisfactory. Many feel the same way about digitalisation >

The programme includes 180 hours of learning vid- eos. Andreas Schaffarczyk is mainly interested in labour law and New Work. The new knowledge can be accessed from anywhere. 85 Susanne Kertelge, whose remit includes Digital Responsibility in the Otto Group, is already looking further ahead. Beyond TechUcation, what can the Otto Group do in terms of digital education, for instance, and the future of work? When it comes to the big questions associated with digitalisation, it actually goes without saying that we need close collab- oration and joint action in conjunction with other stakeholder groups in society. In the “Initiative ZukunftsWerte”, for in- stance, representatives of the Otto Group get together with decision-makers, doers and thinkers from business, science, politics and civil society to discuss how organisations and stakeholders can shoulder their digital responsibility for society and shape the digital transforma- tion in a value-oriented way – preferably together. Why not make valuable expe- riences with digital learning available to others, for instance? Why not encourage teachers to adopt a digital mindset in a similar way – e.g. with specially pro- duced learning videos? In fact, Kertelge’s colleagues are currently conducting talks with Hamburg’s education authority on that very subject. As for the Otto Group itself, approx. 60% of active white-collar users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland had already completed the basic digitalisation course by the turn of 2020/21. At the same time, however, there are still some employees who haven’t logged into the programme yet, despite having access. “Obviously we have our sceptics,” says Andreas Schaf- farczyk, “but I always tell them: Now you’ve got the chance to find out what it can do for you. And you even get to do it during work hours.” Schaffarczyk himself finished his 10- hour basic course some time ago, thereby automatically gaining access to the learn- ing platform’s entire offering. This second level is far more extensive and a com- pletely voluntary option that employees can use on an independent and self-or- ganised basis. Now, whenever Andreas Schaffarczyk logs on to TechUcation, an intelligent learning algorithm suggests courses that might be relevant for him. Learning hacks help him translate what he’s learned into his day-to-day work, coordinate with colleagues, learn more efficiently and try out ideas. He doesn’t actually have much time for that, however, because right now he’s also taking part in a programme to become an Otto Group Learning Coach – a colleague who helps other colleagues learn. Parallel to that and in conjunction with an interdisciplinary, cross-hierarchy and cross-company team, he’s preparing an adapted TechUcation programme for the Otto Group’s almost 10,000 blue-collar employees, who include his colleagues at the logistics centre. That’s quite a challenge, because up until recently many of those colleagues had neither a laptop nor a work email address, which you need to log on to the platform. And it’s already clear that the learning videos need to be produced with subtitles in Turkish, French and other languages to ensure that every driver, every warehouse worker and every dispatcher understands their con- tent. Multilingual resources also make sense because the rollout for the Group’s international employees is scheduled for late 2021. The aim is for all Otto Group employees to have completed the TechUcation curriculum by the end of next year. For Schaffarczyk, it’s clear that this can only be the beginning. “Now we have the tools to join in and have a say when digi- tal topics come up. Now it’s a question of turning learning into doing.” He’s plan- ning to have concrete discussions about just that with colleagues at other logistics centres. There are a few things that could be improved in terms of the handheld scanners used at the logistics centres, for instance, as well as the logistics software. Schaffarczyk has a few ideas ...

36Diversity CommunityOtto Group41PLAN FOtto Group40Väter@OTTOOTTO37#experienced 50+ networkOTTO 38develop<HER>OTTO 39LGBTIQ*-Community MORE*Otto Group28TechUcationOtto Group27Initiative ZukunƒsWerteOtto Group31Finlit FoundationEOS32Aqua-AgentsEnvironmental Foundation Michael Otto25Good CommunityOtto Group30Helping Hands - app (#WirVsVirus)Empiriecom17Shipping bags made of WildplasticOTTO21Second-hand fashionAbout You19Renting instead of buying Unito18Circular polybags with Cadel DeinkingOTTO16Sustainable Product categoriesGroup-wide23Green Button - government-run certification label for sustainable textilesBonprix24Kids collection with Jane Goodall InstituteCrate and Barrel33Foundations Platform F20Environmental Foundation Michael Otto29The Young ClassXOtto Group35Holistic Foundation34HANz! Stiƒung20Repair serviceManufactum22Platz schaffen mit HerzOTTO, Bonprix, Witt Group, Baur Group26Re:BLOGOTTO DiversitySociety & EducationProduct87

89 Every parcel donated supports a non-profit or- ganisation, and all the clothes donated either find a new home or enter the recycling loop. 23. Green Button – government-run certification label for sustainable textiles It should be as easy as possible for customers to consume sustainably. The German govern- ment’s Green Button label provides reliable ori- entation and is used for products such as the Bonprix baby collection. 24. Kids collection mit Jane Goodall Institute US Group company Crate and Barrel is col- laborating with the Jane Goodall Institute, a global conservation organisation. The result: a kids collection of furniture and toys that aims to spark children’s curiosity about the animal kingdom and adventures in the natu- ral world. SOCIETY & EDUCATION 25. Good Community Whether it’s upcycling tips, information about the Climate Strategy or new approaches for the circular economy: in the Good Community, Otto Group employees discuss and exchange ideas on how we can make our world more sustainable and look for supporters for worthy causes. 26. Re:BLOG OTTO’s sustainability blog gives customers wide-ranging insights into the various dimen- sions of sustainability – from travel to food, from fashion to DIY. 27. Initiative ZukunftsWerte With its “Initiative ZukunftsWerte”, the Otto Group wants to actively shape a framework for a value-oriented digital transformation in close collaboration with other players from business, science, politics and civil society and move for- ward together – from talking to doing. 28. TechUcation The group-wide continuing education initiative by the name of TechUcation aims to give the Otto Group’s approx. 52,000 employees a com- prehensive understanding of digitalisation and spark their enthusiasm for lifelong learning – independently of hierarchies, age or which divi- sion they work in. The initiative is based on a self-learning approach and is completed during work time. 29. The Young ClassX The initiative by the Otto Group and the Salut Salon chamber ensemble enables children and youngsters to immerse themselves in the world of music. They might find themselves in the spotlight as a singer or musician, can find out what it means to discover their voice or learn an instrument, and will very definitely embark on a journey that inspires their imagination and teaches them about themselves. 30. Helping Hands –app (#WirVsVirus) Initiated as part of the German government’s #WirVsVirus hackathon in March 2020, the Helping Hands team, consisting of Empi- riecom employees, volunteered to develop a free neighbourhood support app. It brings people who need help with their shopping to- gether with neighbours who are willing to lend a hand. 31. Finlit Foundation With the Finlit Foundation, EOS aims to im- prove young people’s financial literacy and pre- vent them from getting heavily into debt. The first initiative, which goes by the name of ManoMoneta, focuses on children aged 9 to 13. ManoMoneta partners with schools and teach- ers to raise students’ awareness of just how im- portant it is to handle money responsibly. 32. Aqua-Agents An educational programme that provides a fun and intriguing opportunity for children in grades 3 and 4 to explore the diversity and im- portance of water for humans, nature and the economy while encouraging them to have the self-confidence to ask questions, find answers and develop solutions as part of a team. 33. Foundations Platform F20 More than 45 foundations from 12 countries have come together to create the Foundations 20 platform, an alliance that calls for more cli- mate protection and a global renewable ener- gy revolution. The goal: the implementation of Agenda 2030, climate protection projects and the expansion of renewable energies. 34. HANz! Foundation The Hamburg training network HANz! is an initiative that supports and sponsors young- sters from difficult circumstances and helps them get started in working life. The initiative conducts a close dialogue with the young peo- ple to identify their interests and strengths. 35. Holistic Foundation The Holistic Foundation was established by Benjamin and Janina Lin Otto in 2018 with the goal of collaborating with numerous part- ners to support the development of new solu- tions for a common future. The focus is on holistic solution strategies in the fields of learning, wellbeing, vocation and the envi- ronment. DIVERSITY 36. Diversity Community The Otto Group Diversity Community aims to give more importance to diversity and in- clusion across the entire Group and take a broad-based view of diversity in every re- spect, with the focus very much on the “Char- ta der Vielfalt”, a corporate initiative to pro- mote diversity in companies and institutions. The Community strengthens existing net- works and seeks an exchange with other initi- atives, decision-makers and authorities be- yond the boundaries of the Group. 37. #experienced 50+ network #experienced is a network for experienced employees that aims to make the 50+ genera- tion and its potential more visible and pro- mote intergenerational exchange. The net- work raises awareness of future demographic developments and points out what ought to change in society and the corporate world. 38. develop<HER> develop<HER> is a series of events by the fe- male business network PLAN F. The goal is to give women access to the tech world, break down barriers and identify potential. But the events aren’t only aimed at the company’s fe- male employees: they’re open to any woman interested, regardless of her professional background. 39. LGBTIQ*-Community MORE* MORE* is the Otto Group’s queer network and is committed to safeguarding the interests of the LGBTIQ* community (lesbian, gay, bi- sexual, transsexual, intersexual, queer, nonbi- nary) and promoting an unbiased attitude to sexual identity. The network helps create and uphold “safe places” for LGBTIQ* people in Otto Group branches across the globe and to position the Otto Group as clearly pro-diver- sity and anti-discrimination – both internally and externally. 40. Väter@OTTO Väter@OTTO is an open platform that gives fa- thers the opportunity to swap their experience and knowledge within the Group. The goal is to play an active paternal role that permits intense involvement with the development of children and the family. 41. PLAN F PLAN F is the Otto Group’s Fe*Male network and has set itself the goals of achieving equal opportunity at all levels of the company and enabling women to develop their full poten- tial for sustainable corporate success. PLAN F makes a valuable contribution towards over- coming systemic and cultural obstacles at OTTO and in the Otto Group. In addition to the projects listed here, the Otto Group is also active in numerous alliances, member- ships and organisations. They include Save the Chil- dren, the CDR Initiative of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, Fashion for Good, Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, Social Accountability International, Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, Handelsverband Deutschland, B.A.U.M., amfori BSCI, Bangladesh Accord, Textile Exchange, Fur Free Retailer, Forest Stewardship Council, Value Balancing Alliance, World Future Council etc.

91 Photography: JONAS WRESCH Words: ODA ALBERS A ivy-clad birch has been n marked in neon pink. Forester Axel Freude taps on the trunk: “It will be felled soon. And then it might end up as a ‘Sarah’.” Axel Freude and Stefan Jeschke are foresters in Duisburg City Forest. Jeschke is in charge of the northern part, his col- league Axel Freude is responsible for the southern section. The entire 1,500 hectare area is certified with the FSC® label for re- sponsible forest management. That means the trees growing here can be turned into FSC-certified furniture, provided the en- tire production chain, or the chain of cus- tody as it’s known in the trade, is verified as clean by external auditors. Then, later, the label will be displayed on the product. Perhaps on the “Sarah” cabinet made by W. Schildmeyer, a furniture producer in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany. We want to track and understand “Sarah’s” certified sustainable production chain: from the tree in Duisburg City Forest to the wood chip suppliers north and south of it, from there to the particle board producer in an industrial park in Gütersloh, then on to the medium-sized furniture company, and fi- nally to the parcel that Hermes delivers to the customer’s doorstep. It will turn out to be a journey full of surprises, on which we encounter everything that makes the cur- rent debate about sustainable furniture so intriguing. But first things first: FSC? What does that actually mean? The FSC label is issued by the international non-profit organisa- tion of the same name; FSC stands for For- est Stewardship Council®. It was founded by environmentalists in 1993 in order to protect the world’s forest ecosystems by implementing environmental and social standards (see box). The NGO’s strapline says it all: Forests For All Forever. The requirements for certified forest management alone are numerous: 10 key principles that apply across the globe and 70 criteria, enough to fill 55 pages of A4. And further conditions are attached to the label itself and the production chain. But what makes an FSC forest differ- > Forester Axel Freude with his working dog in Duisburg City Forest. This is where Sarah’s journey begins ...

The log yard at the Pieper sawmill in Olsberg. The wood chips produced here will later be turned into particle board. The Reiling recycling centre just a few kilometres away also produces wood chips – although in this case, out of discarded and broken up furniture. A conveyor belt takes the ground up wood away. 93 That’s precisely the kind of recycled wood the Reiling company produces. Lo- cated in the Bönen industrial park to the northwest of Duisburg, its factory special- ises in processing reclaimed wood. The fa- cility is right next to the A2 autobahn. The roar of the traffic mixes with the noise of the delivery trucks and shredders. It’s rain- ing cats and dogs. Reclaimed wood is piled up in tall heaps that tower 7 metres into the air. Surrounded by pallets, a slatted bed base juts into the grey sky, broken ladders are thrown on top of discarded highchairs. The things we all throw away. “In the past, most of it ended up at the dump, but now- adays recycling means that even a particle board gets a second life,” says facility man- ager Amela Keranovic. Recycling yards and companies from the surrounding area unload their reclaimed wood on Reiling – graded into Isabell Pieper, junior director of the sawmill. Many trees have died due to the lack of rain and there’s more wood than required. It‘s then transported to the par- ticle board factory by truck. If the doors are opened so much as a crack, the wood billows out in a dust-like different categories: A1 and A2 are for non-toxic items – fruit crates, huge wood- en cable drums, kitchen worktops or long- span shelving – that can be recycled into furniture or for housing construction. The rest is disposed of or processed into shavings that are used to fuel combined heat and power plants – including the company’s own. In order to recover the material for particle boards out of rubbish, the re- claimed wood is first chopped into pieces measuring 20-30cm, after which a mag- net extracts any screws, hinges or fittings. Then a conveyor belt brings the wood up to the sorting cabin, where three employees remove any impurities that the magnet couldn’t deal with by hand – coatings, plas- tic, bits of carpet. “Only then is it ready for the mill – the heart of our facility,” explains Keranovic. “It’s ground into different >

The decorative finishes that will give the cabinet its look later on are selected. To make sure all the parts fit together correctly, the cabinetmaker mills a groove into the wood. because the FSC allowed the industrial clearing of primeval forests in Russia and the Congo Basin and certified the timber. But even so, as forest expert Dr Christoph Thies of Greenpeace explained at the time, the FSC is “still the only credible label for ecological forest management”. Even without the FSC label, Pieper sup- plies FSC-certified particle board manu- facturer Pfleiderer in Gütersloh. Or the Pfleiderer Group to be more precise, one of the biggest particle board producers in Europe. So will there end up being non- certified virgin wood chips in the little Sarah cabinet? And won’t that break the chain of custody, or CoC for short? Carsten Möser-Benz, head wood buyer at Pfleider- er, shakes his head. “No, the CoC is clean.” For one thing, the wood from Pieper complies with the criteria for classification as “Controlled Wood” and therefore the minimum requirements of the FSC label, even though the company itself isn’t cer- tified. And for another, there are two dif- ferent methods for guaranteeing the clean flow of goods necessary for the label. The first is physical segregation: certified and non-certified wood are pro- cessed and marketed in strict separation. Möser-Benz points through his office window to the rotary drum dryer in the huge industrial plant beyond; as tall as a house, it sends clouds of steam into the sky as it dries the chips. About 500 trucks full of wood come here every week, the factory produces 600 particle boards an hour. “The plant runs non-stop, seven days a week. We can’t just stop it for a moment, give it a quick clean and then pour FSC wood into the hoppers. In our case, physical separa- tion just isn’t feasible, and it doesn’t make ecological sense either.” The second option is what’s known as the mass balance system. “And that has to be 100% transparent and accurate. If I buy 50 tonnes of FSC wood, I’m only allowed to sell exactly the corresponding amount of FSC-certified particle boards.” With this method, he continues, it would be wrong to think of the FSC par- ticle board like an organic egg: taken by itself, the concrete object is not the result of a purely ecological production process. The mass balance system works more like the green power principle: if you buy green power, you’re still supporting alternative energies even though you get the same power mix as everybody else out of your wall sockets rather than 100% alternative electricity. And in the same way, the FSC label means that the purchase promotes sustainable forest management, without the product itself having to originate from 100% FSC-certified forests or timber com- panies. What’s more, Pfleiderer doesn’t just have to document its wood purchases and outgoing goods, it also has to undergo an FSC audit at least once a year. From an economic perspective, imple- menting the numerous FSC requirements is difficult, says Möser-Benz. But couldn’t that be resolved in conjunction with the FSC? After all, the label is meant to take the relevant economic aspects into consid- eration as well. Möser-Benz thinks about that for a moment. “Yes, that’s true. But it’s important to remember that the FSC was originally founded by environmentalists. To this day, there’s often a consensus among those who represent social and ecological interests, which means the business and in- dustry representatives are outvoted.” That’s one of the reasons why another sustainable wood label originated in Europe in 1999, he explains: the PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification), which was founded by the timber indus- try itself. That’s the programme Pieper >

After the international Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, environmentalists were not satisfied with the results of the conference regarding forest protection – which is why they founded the Forest Stewardship Council®, or FSC for short. Its goal: to protect the world’s forests for the long term while guaranteeing that wood is used in environmentally appro-priate ways.The Council is organised into three chambers with equal rights and powers: the environmental, social and economic chambers. They represent the interests of environmentalists, indigenous peoples and employees, companies and forest owners. Today the international NGO is headquar-tered in Bonn and has over 800 members – associations, social sector organisa-tions, unions, companies and private individuals. FSC Germany (Verein für verant-wortungsvolle Waldwirtschaft e.V.) is based in Freiburg; its 219 members (as of January 2021) include independent environmental organisations like the WWF, BUND and NABU, forest owners and trade unions, but also companies like DIY chain Hornbach and, since 2006, the Otto Group. One of the goals of the Otto Group’s Corporate Responsibility Strategy is to ensure that, by 2025, the furniture prod-ucts of all its own and licensed brands, as well as those of strategically relevant third-party brands, are FSC-certified. In addition, the Group aims to keep increas-ing the share of FSC-certified paper it uses while simultaneously reducing the total volume of paper. In order to make all this possible, the Otto Group has been engaged in a stakeholder dialogue with FSC since 2018. This involves the Group advising furniture suppliers on switching to more ecological production practices and promoting the increased availability of FSC-certified wood. And how can a customer recognise wood and paper that meet all these standards? Certified prod-ucts made of sustainable timber or paper carry the FSC label: three black letters under the outline of a tree. Further information: www.fsc.orgWhat’sbehind FSC®?From the Hermes logistics centre in Langenhagen near Hanover, Sarah – safe inside its flatpack – makes its way to customers throughout Germany.people’s desire to furnish their homes in contemporary style at affordable prices. “What we can do,” says Löhr, “is to make sure the furniture we produce for that mar-ket is made as sustainably as possible and guarantee its recyclability.”Ideally, after using Sarah for years, the customer will bring the cabinet to the recycling centre, from where it will go to a company like Reiling that turns the old wood into chips again. And who knows: maybe Sarah will end up as Sarah again. The FSC certification is a challenge for the family-run Schildmeyer company too. It means upholding social standards for all 170 employees – the same wages for men and women, the organisation of a works council, occupational safety meas-ures. Then there are the annual audits and the transparent documentation required for all goods flows. “One to two extra full-time jobs,” says Löhr, estimating the addi-tional staff needed to deal with the admin alone. Even so, he firmly believes that this is the right way to go: “Both politically and among customers, there’s a growing desire for sustainability and transparency – and only the FSC label can communicate that credibly,” says Löhr. “Particle board furni-ture containing reclaimed wood will play an increasingly important role,” he adds. “There’s too much timber on the market right now; it’s being sold abroad and there’ll be a shortage on the German market later on. As the climate changes and the clean energy transformation progresses, the raw material will become increasingly precious and scarce.” Because there’s less wood but more people interested in it, like the own-ers of pellet heating systems, for instance.At the end of the strictly monitored CoC, Sarah leaves the furniture factory in a truck container. Every workday, in the early afternoon, the parcel is picked up and driven along the autobahn to the Hermes logistics centre, the hub in Langenhagen near Hanover. There, in a huge hangar, the parcels are circling on a conveyor belt six metres above the ground. Most of them are for the steadily growing online trade. From here, Sarah will travel to Ham-burg, Bonn or the Wendland region. And from there, the parcel courier will bring the cabinet straight to us. To the custom-ers. To its human users. Both to those who might not have even noticed the FSC label when they made their purchase, and to those who appreciate it, even if they don’t always know exactly what it means – for the companies, the timber industry, the foresters, the forest – and our climate. The end of a long journey. And this is what Sarah looks like when it’s built ...For more on sustainability at OTTO, go to: www.otto.de/unternehmen/en/what-motivates-us/sustainabilityPhoto: OTTO97

“A BOOK? I’D WRAP IT IN OLD NEWSPAPER. IT WOULD BE PERFECT.” Bio Dr Michael Braungart Braungart is a chemist and process technician. But most importantly of all, he’s Scientific Managing Director of EPEA – an international environmental research and consulting institute based in Hamburg. Since its foundation in 1987, Braungart has been focusing on developing “eco-effective products”, i.e. products that are harmful to neither humans nor the environment, but are instead a useful part of a cycle and can be reused again and again. Braungart developed this circular concept, which is also known as the cradle-to-cradle principle, with his research partner, architect William McDonough.

More on the cradle-to-cradle-principle: www.epea.com/encradle-to-cradle material, it would be unbeatably cheap and, at the same time, better quality than the packing materials available today. There could even be other customers further down the line, like the carpet manufacturers I mentioned before. But you’re right: in some cases, the logistical effort might not pay off – in sparsely populated areas, for instance. Packaging that’s sent there would have to be suitable for the biosphere.We’ve seen quite a few types of recycled packaging already, such as envelopes. Once you receive your shipment, you send them back. Isn’t that a good start?It’s a nice idea, but it all depends on the material. Envelopes made of old lorry tarps contain some of the most horrible plasticisers and nastiest stabilisers, meaning you then have a problem with microplastics because the material abrades. Due to these toxic substances, it’s not suitable for either the technosphere or for the biosphere. In the end, it becomes waste. What about transport boxes? They’re made of the wrong material too. Those types of plastic are neither suitable for continuous reuse in the technosphere, nor are they biodegradable in the biosphere.What’s preventing us from making a radical shift in our thinking? The fact that people think they’re protecting the environment by destroying it to a lesser extent: Drive your car less! Produce less waste! You’re not protecting anything, you’re just not destroying it as much. We have to understand that the things we produce have to be – and can be – useful.You once said that traditional sustainability turns the customer into an enemy.That’s because traditional sustainability tries to minimise consumption and tell the customer: Let’s face it, you’re the problem. Once you stop buying things, we’ll have less waste. But consumption isn’t the problem – the problem is one of materials management. So you’re advocating wastefulness?I’m advocating a culture of generousness. A cherry tree in spring doesn’t save anything, avoid anything, reduce anything – and yet it’s useful all the same. We have to learn to be useful, not less harmful. It’s about innova-tion, quality, beauty. If a product becomes waste, it has a quality problem. FOUR WAYS TO PRODUCE LESS WASTEEach year, the Otto Group uses rough-ly 26,000 tonnes of packing material. In 2020, it was probably even more because the coronavirus pandemic altered peo-ple’s purchasing behaviour and fuelled online shopping. The packaging is primar-ily made of cardboard (21,000 tonnes) and plastic (5,000 tonnes). To reduce the impact on the environment, the Group pursues a four-pronged strategy: first, more recycled packaging material; second, less material overall; third, more reusable packaging; and fourth, closing loops. The cardboard boxes arriving at the Group’s returns logistics centre, for example, are picked up directly by paper producers and made into new boxes. But most impor-tantly, the company regularly tests new packaging ideas, such as shipping bags made of plastic waste recovered from beaches, for instance – in other words, they’re made from material that is 100% recycled to make new packaging. At this point in time, the share of recycled mate-rial in many types of plastic packaging is considerably lower, and the Otto Group aims to increase it to at least 80%. This has already been achieved in the case of cardboard boxes. The level of recyclability is high, since the packaging is usually com-posed of a single material, making it easi-er to recycle. The aim is to achieve overall packaging recyclability of 95%; cardboard boxes are already at 98%. But the Otto Group is still a long way from cradle to cradle, i.e. the complete recycling of high-quality materials in either biologi-cal or technical cycles without forfeiting quality or generating waste. There is no nylon packaging, and the prospect of it be-ing turned into carpeting later on is even more remote. The Otto Group shares the vision, but ultimately everything has to make sound business sense as well. In the short term, the experts say, the cradle-to- cradle principle seems virtually impossible to implement. However, they definitely consider it a goal worth striving for in the long term – and think the Otto Group is heading in the right direction. PackagingHere’s what the Otto Group does103

How fair is fair? When it comes to sustainability in the fashion industry, so much has happened in recent years that it’s hard to keep track. Who can tell whether a firm really does comply with high standards or just claims to? And what happens if a company uses organic cotton but still exploits its garment workers? It takes a lot of research and expert knowledge to find out for sure. Australian company Good On You aims to make that easier and has invented a rating system that brings clarity even in grey areas. Besides established labels like Fair Trade, OEKO-TEX and GOTS, Good On You also analyses more than 50 smaller certification systems and digs through any documentation it can find on the public record. It’s already rated more than 2,000 fashion brands based on three parameters: People, Planet and Animals. There are five levels of recom- mendation, ranging from “We Avoid” to “Great”. The database is also extremely helpful for clearing up prejudices. H&M, for instance, gets a better rating than Louis Vuitton. And not all the major sports shoe producers are the same either: Adidas, for instance, beats Nike in the Planet and Animals categories. Details of how a label performs are available from www.goodonyou.eco or via the Good On You app. 105 Repairable jeans Normally a fashion company’s business relationship with its customers has a pretty clear-cut end: once the purchase is made, it’s over. As for what to do with the clothing one, two or 10 years down the line, the customer is on their own. But Nudie Jeans aims to forge a bond with the people who wear its fashions – preferably for life. If the fabric becomes threadbare or holes appear – no problem: Nudie re- pairs old jeans for free – either at its stores in major cities around the world or at one of its mobile workshops. If you prefer to do your own mending, you get a repair kit to use at home. And if nothing but a new pair will do, you get a discount if you return an old pair. According to the com- pany, its employees took in and repaired more than 60,000 pairs of denims in the last financial year. A sea change: fashion made of algae The founders of AlgiKnit are convinced that fashion companies need an alter- native to cotton and synthetic fibres. And that alternative is kelp! Yes, kelp: the seaweed forms vast underwater forests and grows rapidly – up to half a metre a day; it can be cultivated in aquafarms in oceans across the globe and sequesters CO2 far more efficiently than terrestrial plants. So kelp farms wouldn’t just produce a good raw mate- rial, they’d do the climate good as well. And according to AlgiKnit, the fashions are compostable too. A few years ago, the firm demonstrated what the material can do by presenting the prototype of a futuristic-looking sneaker. It consist- ed of several layers of kelp mesh with different densities – a running shoe made of marine plants. And an ocean of possibilities. Sea the difference It’s not exactly commonplace for fashion labels to market themselves with images of rubbish-strewn beaches and plastic-clogged oceans. But in Ecoalf ’s case, this pressing global problem is the crucial selling point. Founded by Spanish entrepreneur Javier Goyeneche (49), the firm specialises in upcycling waste into high-quality jackets, backpacks, shoes and trousers. Here’s how it works: fishermen in Thailand and Spain sell their plastic bycatch to Ecoalf, who sorts and processes the rubbish and spins it into yarn that’s then used to produce casual clothing. In Spain alone, more than 2,500 fishermen are involved with the project run by the fashion label and its foundation. According to Ecoalf, they’ve retrieved more than 600 tonnes of plastic from the ocean to date. And company founder Goyeneche is always on the lookout for new types of waste: he’s thinking about making shoes out of shrimp shells. Staying dry The world’s textile dyeing plants swallow the inconceivable amount of five trillion litres of water a year. A technology developed in the Netherlands has found a water-free way to dye synthetic fabrics with the help of liquid CO2: DyeCoo. Bonprix has teamed up with partners to found the CleanDye joint venture and established a dyeing factory in Vietnam that relies exclusively on the water-sav- ing process. Once the dyeing is com- pleted, 95% of the CO2 used is recycled. There’s even an additional benefit: factories that use the DyeCoo method don’t need any process chemicals either – another way the technology is kind to the environment.

Hamburg, May 2021Editorial deadline: 1st April, 2021Many of the photographs in this magazine were taken before the coronavirus pandemic started.PublisherOtto GroupWerner-Otto-Straße 1-722179 Hamburg, Germanywww.ottogroup.comResponsibleThomas VoigtTel.: +49 (0) 40-6461-4010Email: thomas.voigt@ottogroup.com Project TeamNicole Sieverding (Lead), Isabella Grindel-Schlotterbeck,Sandra Hartwig, Dr Tobias WollermannFollow the Otto Group here: Editorial OfficeGEO Gruner + Jahr GmbHAm Baumwall 1120459 Hamburg, Germany briefe@geo.de www.geo.deChief Editors: Jens Schröder (responsible as defined by German press law), Markus WolffPublishing Manager: Eva ZaherHead of Corporate Projects: Margitta Schulze Lohoff (GEO innolab), lohoff.margitta@guj.deManaging Editor: York Pijahn (STORIES – Drama for Brands agency)Creative Director: Mark Ernsting (STORIES – Drama for Brands agency)Picture Editor: Josephine Kaatz (freelance)Translation and Proofreading: Alison DuBovis, Rachel Kretz (freelance)Verification: Quality BoardThe GEO pledge of quality: all the articles in this publication have been verified. All the facts have been checked by the independent experts on GEO’s Quality Board, which consists of academics and research specialists who supply editors and contributing authors with precise, relevant reports based on data from primary sources, such as scientific studies, professional journals or statistics. Prepress: 4mat Media, Hamburg/Gütersloh, GermanyPrinting: Langebartels & Jürgens GmbH, Hamburg, Germany NOW was made using a climate-neutral printing process and is certified according to guidelines established by the Blue Angel – the German federal government’s eco-label for protecting people and the environment. Unlike conventional printed matter on the market, print media bearing the Blue Angel label are produced in an environmentally friendly and resource-efficient way and are printed in a low-emission process on predominantly recycled paper. PhotosCover: Justin Kauffman/Unsplash.com; pp. 2/3 Axel Martens; pp. 4/5 GMB Akash, Claudia Meitert, Axel Martens, David Maupilé, Peter Rigaud, Romina Rosa, Maria Schiffer, Jonathan Torgovnik, Jonas Wresch; pp. 6-9 Dörpsmobil Schwedeneck e. V., atmosfair, Bergwaldprojekt e. V, Wege aus der Einsamkeit e. V., Finlit Foundation, Elias Bohun, Aqua-Agents office, Azuri Technologies, Vic Hinterlang/Soil, Ipso; pp. 10/11 Brooke-Lark/Unsplash.com; pp. 12-21 David Maupilé; pp. 22-33 Peter Rigaud; pp. 34-41 Jonathan Torgovnik; pp. 44-49 Maria Schiffer; pp. 50-59 Romina Rosa; pp. 60-65 Axel Martens; pp. 66-75 GMB Akash; pp. 76-81 Axel Martens; pp. 82-85 Claudia Meitert; pp. 86/87 Andrew Timmins; pp. 90-99 Jonas Wresch, OTTO; pp. 98-103 Axel Martens, Volodymyr Hryshchenko/Unsplash.com, Wherda Arsianto/Unsplash.com; pp. 104-106 Tomas Engel/Unown, People Tree, Nudies, Giant Kelp/AlgiKnit, Erdos Cashmere Group, Presize, About YouPUBLISHING DETAILSHV8QUALITY BOARDDER FAKTENCHECKVON UND O