Towards a more sustainable assortment
Schwartzmans is a family business and total supplier of cleaning products and materials. Optimal (customer) relationships are key for the company, including with suppliers like Paardekooper. This is the reason why they partnered with us on this sustainability journey.
‘We are proud that to us it is really about being more sustainable; turnover and profit is secondary to this. We want to change the mindset.’
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‘For Schwartzmans, sustainability is a condition for a mutual relationship. The collaboration with Paardekooper is very valuable for us, because they are optimally focused on moving the whole chain towards more sustainable choices.’
The evaluation based on the assortment classification gave Schwartzmans valuable insights. For example, they immediately replaced plastic tape used to close boxes with the paper version. They are also increasingly including more sustainable products in their assortment, such as bin liners made from recycled material instead of virgin material. Explaining this change to their end customers is still challenging. But during personal conversations, Schwartzmans tells their customers about the sustainable choices they are making.
Nevertheless, there are still many challenges for achieving a sustainable assortment. Ideally, Schwartzmans would like to see a European system that indicates a product’s sustainability level. Similar to what already exists for white goods or in the housing market. Without such a system, we need to build our own system that provides customers with the right information on sustainability.
William Schwartzmans, managing director Schwartzmans:
Working together on susatainability