Sustainable success with luxury: Mytheresa
Sustainable success with luxury
What began in 1987 as a boutique called Theresa in the centre of Munich, Mytheresa is now one of Germany's most successful e-commerce companies and the world's leading online retailer of luxury goods, shipping products from over 200 designer brands to more than 130 countries. The company has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2021 and is continuously growing.
To develop its business model as sustainable as possible, Mytheresa has made a commitment to achieving ambitious environmental, social, and governance goals. Since 2021, Mytheresa has been working with ClimatePartner to develop and implement an effective climate action strategy by calculating the company's carbon footprint. This makes it possible to identify emissions reduction potential and determine reduction measures. Company-related greenhouse gas emissions are included in the calculation: shipments of goods to customers, returns and packaging, all Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and a portion of Scope 3 emissions.
The result: most of the emissions are caused by shipping and transporting products in Scope 3, the company's core business. Mytheresa has therefore set itself the goal of reducing emissions in this area. For instance, they entered a partnership with DHL to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in international freight transport by financing and using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) instead of conventional jet fuel. Further reduction measures include
- Procuring 92% of total electricity consumption from green electricity
- Certification of energy-efficient buildings
- Offering sustainable packaging to customers and removing plastic parts from standard packaging, such as the Mytheresa paper labels, where a protective layer of plastic has been removed
- Including decision-makers in climate action activities
- Involving and educating customers in topics relevant to climate action
- Converting the in-house vehicle fleet to electric vehicles
- Providing a charging infrastructure for employees
- Creating incentives to use public transport
For any remaining emissions, Mytheresa finances climate projects certified by the Gold Standard.
As a globally operating company, it was important for Mytheresa to select projects in different parts of the world using various technologies:
„Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the luxury industry today and Mytheresa continues to be fully committed to playing a role in reducing our environmental impact. We actively measure our carbon footprint with the support and expertise of ClimatePartner and through our support for Gold Standard projects. Becoming a sustainable platform is a journey, not an end goal, and going forward we plan to continue growing our business sustainably in line with our philosophy of constant improvement. As such, we have the opportunity to bring greater visibility to our customers regarding the products they buy and by promoting ways in which we can work together to make better, more informed purchases.“