We firmly believe that a healthy life is only possible on a healthy planet. Therefore, sustainability and environmental responsibility are an integral part of SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE’s corporate strategy. Based on our sustainability strategy “Because we care”, we incorporate sustainability into decision-making at all levels, communicate the results transparently to the relevant stakeholders and measure and manage the negative impact of our business activities on the environment.
Like policymakers at the European and national levels, we are convinced that the issues of sustainability and healthcare need to be considered together even more strongly in the future.
Our sustainability strategy is based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goalsand covers the three pillars “Planetary Care”, “Patient Care” and “Employee Care”.
With “Planetary Care”, we focus on complete climate neutrality and the triad of “measurement, emission offsetting and reduction”. We have set ourselves the target of making our contribution to limiting global warming to well below two degrees Celsius.
In a first step, SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE measures its direct and indirect emissions with the help of a TÜV-certified corporate carbon footprint which includes all emissions that occur along our value chain. In 2020, our emissions amounted to a total of 15,466.5 tonnes of CO2.
In the second step, 100 percent of all emissions have been offset since autumn 2020 through the purchase of certificates from international climate protection projects whose quality has been awarded the Gold Standard. The costs for offsetting are distributed within our company according to departments’ respective responsibility for the origin of the emissions. This way, we establish a structure with negative financial incentives for a continuous reduction of emissions in all corporate areas.
For the reduction - the third step - we define measurable targets and concrete initiatives together with each department. This way, we were able to reduce the average CO2 emissions per parcel from 1.09kg to 0.93kg (a minus of 15%) in 2020.
Other important milestones in reducing emissions are the gradual switch to electricity from renewable energy sources at all our locations by 2025, the further improvement of the energy efficiency of our buildings and alternative delivery methods that bring our parcels to our customers just as quickly and reliably, but with less CO2 expenditure.
We are also working on more sustainable packaging as well as reusable and recyclable solutions to reduce waste from shipping packaging as much as possible.
In the field of “Patient Care” we focus on the health of our patients (see “Therapy Support and Medication Management: The Digital Services of SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE” (HYPERLINK)). In the field of “Employee Care” we concentrate on the fair and responsible treatment of our employees. We offer our currently more than 1,200 employees not only a secure job, but also the opportunity to create a better world every day - in a fair and healthy working environment.
