Sustainable consumption

The specific product mixes of our sales lines are tailor-made to perfectly match the diverse needs of our private and commercial customers. These products and services must not only meet quality and safety requirements. Increasingly, they must also satisfy critical social and environmental requirements – from production and procurement to usage and disposal. For this reason, we focus firmly on measures that enable us to shape the relevant product features on the basis of our guidelines for sustainable purchasing. Our goal is to procure products that satisfy environmental, social and economic considerations. We also ensure transparency with regard to the resources used and the procurement of products by working closely with our respective business partners. Our harmonised international traceability solution Pro Trace further supports us in these efforts. METRO developed this solution in cooperation with other retailers, well-known partners and the standardisation organisation GS1 Germany. It enables us to gather relevant data electronically (e.g. data on products and suppliers) and manage it on a single software platform. Our Pro Trace app makes access to this information much easier and more reliable, both for customers and for other users.

Furthermore, we offer our customers greater transparency by using product labels that indicate our compliance with certain sustainability standards. We also label our own brand products accordingly. In addition, we provide complementary information flyers and customer brochures in our outlets and engage in a dialogue with our customers. This allows us to facilitate and encourage responsible consumption.

Our sales lines’ assortments include fair trade products as well as foods that bear the European organic product symbol. In financial year 2016/17, METRO Cash & Carry and Real generated sales of nearly €16 million in Germany from fair trade products. This figure includes all articles bearing a Fairtrade or GEPA label. In the same period, our sales lines generated nearly €140 million in Germany-wide sales of products certified in accordance with the EU regulation on organic products. Our assortment also includes products from sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. These are products carrying the seal of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) or the EU organic product label. In financial year 2016/17, METRO Cash & Carry and Real generated sales of more than €93 million from their sustainable fish assortment in Germany. Our objective is to meet the expectations of our customers and to contribute to the local economy. Our sales lines are therefore increasingly listing regional products in their assortments. Certain METRO Cash & Carry national subsidiaries already identify these products using special regional labels. The main characteristics of these regional products are superb freshness, outstanding quality and a regional connection to the supplier, both in terms of geographical proximity and in terms of close and mutually beneficial supplier relationships.

At Real, regionality refers to products that were produced within 100 km of the store that sells them. The Real sales line generated sales of more than €440 million from regional products during the past financial year. The sales lines increasingly offer its customers products from sustainable forestry. Sales of products bearing either the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) label exceeded €39 million in Germany. Given our customers’ increasing interest in sustainable products and the resulting potential for our business, we continue to work on increasing the share of more sustainable products in our assortment, as well as further developing business solutions for our customers. In financial year 2016/17, Real has added an additional 1,500 sustainable food products to its shelves compared to the previous year. This means that Real has made good progress in achieving its goal of increasing the share of sustainable products in its revenues to 30% by 2019. In financial year 2016/17, a share of 26% was reached. Sustainable products are products carrying certified seals or labels or Real’s own or an approved quality seal. This also includes regional, reusable and free-range products. Real will achieve its goal by focusing on regional products, produce from organic farming, fruit and vegetables from permaculture as well as projects relating to animal welfare.

Consumption, even at reasonable levels, always involves the use and depletion of resources. We therefore feel that it is our responsibility to minimise the resultant waste and emissions. We place great importance on promoting innovative manufacturing and recycling technologies and on thinking in terms of cycles. Since products and packaging find themselves in the hands of consumers when they reach the end of their useful lives, we also advise our customers when it comes to proper disposal: Selected stores provide our customers with information about natural resources, encourage them to avoid waste and offer incentives and opportunities for proper disposal. For example, METRO Cash & Carry France accepts waste oil returns from its customers. This allows us to do our part to ensure that waste materials are converted back into raw materials that can be reused.