How to shift 100,000 products toward sustainability: creating a sustainable assortment at Haberkorn

Haberkorn is Austria’s biggest industrial wholesaler with ~1,000 employees and an annual turnover of about 260 Mill €. The range of goods consists of about 100,000 articles. Their goal: A sustainable assortment. The challenge: Assessing all the products and defining a sustainable product line. Goal and challenge are based on a corporate decision made by the management board: sustainability should meet the core business. As a scientific and implementation partner Haberkorn chose the Austrian Institute of Ecology. It is obvious that Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for 100,000 articles are hardly feasible. Hence, a special screening tool for estimating the sustainability potential on product group level in a quick and efficient way had to be developed. The screening tool consists of three categories to be rated: risks, chances, and strategic impact. Product groups with a high score are chosen for further treatment as “sustainability candidates.” In addition, a questionnaire concerning the sustainability performance, knowledge about the supply chain, and willingness to cooperate was sent to all suppliers, and basic facts concerning environmental, health, safety, and social aspects of the major materials used in the products were compiled (material manual). All product line managers have used the screening to detect the sustainability potential of their product groups, and the coached assessment process on individual product basis has started successfully. The next steps consist of the transformation process of sustainability candidates into a sustainability assortment and the evaluation process of high risk articles. This ought to result in improvement or potential elimination of products which jeopardize the user’s health, generate environmental damages, are produced under poor working conditions, etc.