Driving more sustainable choices with Sara Diez
In 2019, we outlined our vision to become a fashion platform with a net-positive impact for people and the planet in our sustainability strategy, do.MORE.
At the core of the strategy are measurable and science-aligned goals across the categories of planet, product and people, which we have set out to complete between 2023 and 2025.
Throughout 2021, delivering on our sustainability targets remained a top priority for us. This can be seen in our second standalone Sustainability Progress Report 2021 where we share our learnings and insights with the progress we’ve made over the last two years.
We’ve built important foundations regarding some dimensions like carbon footprint, packaging, ethical standards, reskilling, circularity, and assortment, while we’re still in testing mode on others.
Our goal is to lead change and move the fashion industry forward.
In this article we talk with Sara Diez, VP of Category Women, who is the sponsor of the goal of driving more sustainable choices, about the work she and her team are doing within the focus area of product assortment on the Zalando platform.
As the sponsor of “Driving more sustainable choices,” which sustainability achievements are you the proudest of and why?
I’m really proud to say that more than 21% of our gross merchandise value (GMV) now comes from more sustainable products, directly connected to our goal of reaching 25% by 2023.
We see more engagement from brands partners on the topic, who are increasingly prioritizing sustainability in their strategies and it affects how they’re perceiving Zalando as a partner of choice for sustainability.
When we ask customers if they find us credible, our sustainability net promoter score is going up, so the customers’ perception of us as a leading platform for more sustainable assortment is also growing.
2021 has been a year of exploration and we’ve made some investments to scale industry solutions, like investing in Infitinated Fiber Company, which is creating a new circular, premium textile fiber from textile waste to reduce the world’s reliance on virgin raw materials.
I’m also proud of the work we’ve done with our Zalando private label brands where 65% of the GMV comes from products that carry our sustainability flag, with our flagship brand, ZIGN, reaching 100% of products that meet our standard sustainability requirements.
Our private labels are where we apply innovative solutions, like the “redeZIGN for circularity” capsule collections from ZIGN, with the 2021 release consisting of 50 products enhanced with a QR code label, so that customers can learn how the garment was produced and how to extend its life cycle.
We want to show that we are willing to lead in this space by starting with our own private labels.
You’re the VP of Women’s Category — what is your team currently working on to contribute to the goal?
When we talk about sustainability, we have common team goals across all assortment categories. And for Category Management as a whole, I would say we have 3 main focus areas:
- To keep scaling our sustainability offer by engaging with our partners on the topic.
- To keep raising the bar through offering more circular solutions and expanding into circularity, which is a fairly new industry topic for us. As well as raising the standards of our sustainability criteria.
- And to keep onboarding new brands, especially more sustainable brands, onto the Zalando platform.
When we set targets, we make sure to prioritize sustainability as a topic in the top-to-top conversations that are happening with partners.
We also support the training of our partners on reducing carbon emissions with science-based targets, among other educational initiatives. So, we work on building partner engagement through upskilling sessions, so we can collectively work towards a common goal. We’ve already done several webinars on sustainability topics but we also want to explore other engagement formats to generate more learning and collaboration. And when we survey our partners about what they’re interested in, sustainability comes back as a high-ranking topic, so it’s not just us pushing our own agenda. And because the partners are excited about sustainability, it also reinforces an eagerness to upskill within our teams and employees, who find pride in contributing to the change.
The team-driven focus areas are driving Zalando to become a forum for partners to share knowledge about actions and collaborations that are needed. And customers are also validating our efforts by increasingly buying into more sustainable choices and products, which we see through increased visitors to product detail pages and higher conversion rates of more sustainable products.
Based on the credibility we’ve gained through our initiatives; we’re becoming a partner and destination of choice for sustainable brands which previously were more hesitant to operate on a platform like ours.
What next milestone are you the most excited about and why?
The next milestones I’m excited about are connected to our key focus areas of keeping the customer engagement, offering transparent ways of buying more sustainably, and building more credibility with customers as well as our brand partners.
I’m excited about the whole exploration of raising the sustainability bar in general with circular, innovative, and scalable industry solutions.
We’re currently utilizing our private labels to explore best practices to apply and share what we’re learning through collaboration. We work closely with our Digital Experience tech teams to continue to enable customers in making more sustainable choices on the Zalando platform, so getting to the next level of even more sophisticated solutions, is something we really look forward to.
