Care-For a responsible e-commerce: Interview with Gloria Tramontana
We sat down with Gloria Tramontana, our Sustainability Manager, to find out more about the new Care-For strategy, significant achievements, possible obstacles and Boozt’s vision for sustainability in the coming years.
Boozt is taking significant steps to drive the sustainability agenda forward and become the leading responsible e-commerce company in the Nordics by 2025. With the publication of the Boozt Sustainability Report 2020, we launched our new Care-For sustainability strategy. Caring for the change we want to see, we have set actionable goals for the next five years focused on positively impacting our own operations as well as supporting collaboration across the supply chain.
The fashion industry faces many challenges. How can Boozt be a part of the solution in terms of environmental and social sustainability?
We have a unique opportunity as the link between brands and the consumer to promote and push for sustainable choices across the whole supply chain, from production all the way through to product use and care. Achieving transformation requires the industry to step away from the silo mentality and recognize the value of transparency and collaboration. One of the most impactful things Boozt can do through our position is to encourage knowledge sharing across the supply chain, working with new technologies and innovations to make it easier for our brands and our customers to understand and share data, and ultimately make more conscious decisions.
Tell us more about the new Care-For strategy, what is the thought and drive behind it?
Sustainability is a crucial building block for our long-term business success, ensuring that we meet the needs of our customers, the industry and our planet. We have worked hard to make sure we run our operations on responsible business practices and have a solid understanding of our footprint. We are now in a position where we can amplify our efforts, and use our business as a catalyst for change. That’s where our new Care-For strategy comes in. It acts as our roadmap to becoming the leading responsible e-commerce company in the Nordics, guiding us on our journey. Our Boozt ‘care-why’ culture serves as the foundation for our strategy and means going beyond just knowing. We care why things are the way they are, care for the change we want to see and choose to act.
In order to be a catalyst for change, Boozt has set actionable goals for the next five years. What do you believe will be the biggest challenge going forward?
This year has shown how quickly circumstances can change and the need to be able to adapt when they do. In times of crisis, core values are emphasized and it has become even more apparent that we need to find scalable and lasting solutions that address environmental and social issues in the fashion supply chain. To do this collaborative action is needed, and that is the focus of many of our goals. I think one of the biggest challenges going forward and our biggest opportunity will be finding ways of measuring and communicating sustainability performance that works both for our many brand partners and our customers, and that takes into account the complexity of the supply chain.
Reflecting on the past few years, what are some of the key sustainability achievements?
Looking back there is a lot to be proud of. We have always run our business on our desire to do good, for example, the fact that we from the very beginning chose to fully power our operations on renewable energy, everything from our automated warehouse to the servers we host our platforms on. We have also worked hard to find new innovative solutions for responsible packaging, such as biodegradable shipping bags or alternative materials for padding. Many of the available options are unfortunately still at the early stages and often lack scalability. But we continue to explore our options and provide proof of concept for our industry partners. I’m also very proud of all that we have done to make it easier for our customers to make sustainable choices. We have curated one of the largest sustainability selections in the Nordics, with products that meet our industry-leading standards and detailed information on a product level.
And looking into the future, what do you think will be one of Boozt’s key sustainability achievements in five years time?
I hope in five years we will be the leading responsible e-commerce company in the Nordics, using our position to make a lasting difference. This will of course include many different sustainability efforts but one significant step will be reaching our goal of becoming B Corp certified by 2023. This means joining a global community of companies across industries focused on using their business as a force for good, balancing profit and purpose. I really believe that the process of certification and the interaction with the B Corp movement will help us scale our positive impact through the Boozt business model.
More details on sustainability at Boozt can be found in the Sustainability Report 2020
