At the beginning of September 2023, EPEA — Part of Drees & Sommer presented the results of the investigation at Globetrotter's Bonn store. The keynote speaker included Prof. Michael Braungart, chemist and process engineer and co-inventor of the Cradle to Cradle® principle.

The original mandate for EPEA was: To develop a re-use concept for the renewal of Globetrotter's first Re:Think store in order to reduce the resulting CO₂-Reduce emissions and resource consumption as much as possible. For this purpose, EPEA developed the new Circularity Passport Interiors together with Globetrotter.

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Healthy and recyclable materials

“The Circularity Passport Interiors describes exactly which products and materials are used and what their ecological footprint is,” says Markus Diem, managing director of EPEA — Part of Drees & Sommer. “This makes it possible to compare and optimize various design approaches with regard to their ecological footprint. The EPEA climate certificate is both a planning and documentation tool that helps to save resources, avoid waste and reduce CO₂- to reduce emissions,” Diem continues.

The model for the Circularity Passport Interiors is the “Circularity Passport Building”. This is a digital resource pass that creates full transparency for buildings with regard to the ecological properties of the materials used.

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The results of the study are clear

According to EPEA calculations, a conventional shopfitting project of comparable size would have around 105,000 kilograms of CO₂-Equivalents created. By contrast, the Re:Think Store's reuse concept resulted in only 3,120 kilograms of CO₂-Equivalents emitted — around 97 percent less.

Overall, the Bonner store has a re-use rate of 94 percent. Reason: Most of the materials and pieces of furniture used were already in use before. In addition, around 88 percent of the materials used in the branch can be reused, as they can be easily dismantled or repaired.

The results show that retail can do a circular economy!

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“Transparency about the materials used inside a building is just as important as outside, which is why we monitor the material health of a product whose CO₂-Footprint, the origin of the raw materials, their dismantlement and their possible reuse. ”‍Markus Diem, Managing Director EPEA - Part of Drees & Sommer