23 October 2024
Rated recommendable: How the Enkelfähig Score makes it easier for TAKKT and kaiserkraft customers to make the right choice
An opaque jungle of seals, certificates and labels
FSC, Energy Star or Blue Angel – just three of the numerous seals and certificates dedicated to sustainability. So why has our portfolio company TAKKT decided to add yet another label to these with the Enkelfähig Score? To find out, we spoke to Sabrina Raith, Head of Sustainability at TAKKT Group, who was closely involved in the development of the score. We also approached the TAKKT subsidiary kaiserkraft, in whose webshop the Enkelfähig Score has now been rolled out across all products.
TAKKT Group specializes in B2B omnichannel distribution for business equipment. At the beginning of considerations to introduce their own rating, they realized that none of the existing certificates covered all aspects that were important to the TAKKT sustainability team. Sabrina Raith says: “Our mission was to give our customers an easy way to choose sustainable products. And also to explain to them why the product is sustainable.” Lisa Blumenstock, Executive Environmental Portfolio Manager at kaiserkraft, adds: “Our customers are also increasingly confronted with new sustainability regulations. This means it is becoming more important to know exactly how sustainable their purchased products are.” The problem with existing labels is that they usually only cover parts of a product's life cycle – such as energy efficiency or carbon footprint.
The Enkelfähig Score: Guiding the way to a sustainable, social and fair future
This is exactly where the Enkelfähig Score comes in. “It was crucial for us to scrutinize our products along the entire sustainability chain and take a close look at the individual criteria,” explains Sabrina Raith. The focus was on the categories of circular economy, climate change, economic efficiency, biodiversity and innovation. She adds: “You won't find this multidimensionality in any other label.” The result is a scale from one to five that uses these categories to provide information on how sustainable a product is. The basis for this is lots of data. At the start of the project, it was still collected manually in an Excel file. Since then, so much data has been collected that the Excel file reached its limits and the team has switched to an automated process. To summarize: Data in, Enkelfähig Score out. What sounds so simple was in reality an extremely complex process that took almost two years from the initial strategy at TAKKT to the actual “go-live” in the kaiserkraft web shop.
Challenge accepted & overcoming obstacles
As is the case when you break new ground: first you have to overcome one or two hurdles. One of the biggest challenges for TAKKT's sustainability team was the variety of its product portfolio and the question: How does an international, listed group with numerous different brands and divisions manage to create an overarching rating that applies to all products, brands and markets? After all, the available data, market requirements and IT infrastructures are different everywhere.
The solution: While the overarching categories of circular economy, climate change, economic efficiency, biodiversity and innovation always remain the same – and thus ensure a common standard for all TAKKT Group companies – the individual assessment criteria are adapted depending on the subsidiary and its product portfolio. Sabrina Raith gives an example: “Of course, a refrigerator with a certain energy consumption and longevity cannot be assessed according to the same criteria as a cardboard box.” Instead, the aspects of sustainability to be assessed were defined individually for each portfolio.
Data, data, data
The incredible amount of data – and its quality – was also a major issue when implementing the Enkelfähig Score. Lisa Blumenstock explains what this means in practice: “At kaiserkraft alone, we have over 90,000 products in more than 400 different article groups. At the beginning of the project, we honestly asked ourselves from time to time: How can we possibly get this done?” One of the reasons why the Enkelfähig Score has been a success at kaiserkraft is because of the approximately 1,000 suppliers. They play a particularly important role in data collection. “What surprised us during the process was how positively our suppliers reacted to the Enkelfähig Score. Many of them wanted to actively participate and know how they could improve their rating,” says Sabrina Raith. The collection of relevant data is now an integral part of the onboarding process for suppliers at kaiserkraft. And thanks to automated data processing, the Enkelfähig Score can be recalculated every day. The advantage: changes in the manufacture or delivery of products are reflected in the Enkelfähig Score on the website on a daily basis.
Positive reactions throughout
Now that the Enkelfähig Score has been available for each of the more than 90,000 products in kaiserkraft's online store for several months, it is time to ask: How do customers respond to the rating? Lisa Blumenstock draws an initial conclusion: “The reactions from our customers are consistently positive. And we can see from the dwell time in our online store that they are engaging intensively with the topic of Enkelfähig.” This is also reflected in sales. Enkelfähig products with a score above 3 not only have a higher conversion rate, but also above-average growth. At the same time, the competition has taken notice – and is following suit with similar systems. A sign that TAKKT and kaiserkraft have taken the right path by introducing the rating. This was also confirmed by the jury of the German Award for Sustainability Projects in June 2024. Thanks to the Enkelfähig Score, it selected TAKKT as the winner in the evaluation concepts category.
Guidance for greater sustainability
In its webshop, kaiserkraft provides information about the sustainability of a product in addition to its general description and technical data. For anyone who wants to know more about how kaiserkraft goes about its product evaluations, the company has created a seperate page about its Enkelfähig initiative.
Looking ahead
If you ask Sabrina Raith about the long-term goals that the TAKKT Group pursues with the Enkelfähig Score, she replies: “Following the successful introduction at kaiserkraft, our focus is now on driving the rating forward in other divisions and going live with it. After all, our goal is to generate 40 percent of sales with Enkelfähig products by 2025.” In order to achieve this goal, kaiserkraft has launched various marketing measures to bring the topic of Enkelfähig even closer to customers. At the same time, the team is continuing to work on the concept and its implementation: “Improving the Enkelfähig score is a continuous process; there are always opportunities for further optimization,” says Lisa Blumenstock. She and her colleague Sabrina Raith agree: their mission has only just begun.
