Bayer brings in Wunderman for climate change strategy

bayer 2Healthcare giant Bayer, whose brands include Rennie, Alka-Seltzer, Clarityn and Barocca, has become the first business to sign up to a sustainable commerce pilot scheme run in partnership with Wunderman Thompson Commerce and Vaayu.

The Sustainable Commerce Practice was set up by the WPP division and carbon-tracking software Vaayu in December 2021 and launched to market officially in a closed beta in January 2022.

The offering covers consultancy, creative, operations and technology services to support clients in reducing the carbon footprint of their digital commerce propositions and meeting the evolving needs of consumers.

The consumer health division of Bayer has now committed to tackling two sustainable development goals in digital commerce: climate action and responsible consumption & production.

The deal is designed to will allow Bayer to optimise its carbon footprint by providing access to automated, real-time data that delivers clarity on company emissions.

Connecting via Bayer’s point-of-sale system, Vaayu is able to accurately calculate the carbon footprint of daily transactions using its proprietary database of more than 600,000+ data points.

By automating Bayer’s carbon footprint calculations across three key areas of commerce, including product, packaging and delivery, carbon hotspots can be identified to provide reduction scenarios that empower tangible action.

Using artificial intelligence and optimising business processes, Bayer is aiming to improve efficiencies, reduce packaging waste and green-house gas emissions. At the same time as lowering its impact on the environment, the data will inform a reduction in the cost to serve, ultimately allowing Bayer to reinvest these savings back into responsible consumption and production programmes.

The target outcomes of the programme include cost savings, reducing CO2 emissions to meet environmental targets and improving transparency and access to information throughout the customer experience.

The initial rollout will take place with flagship personal healthcare products and services in Germany, enabling Bayer’s Consumer Health division to test these new approaches and learn from them with a view to scale across other areas of the business.

Bayer global director ecommerce Dr Andrea-Victoria Noelle said: “We are embracing this opportunity to pilot with Wunderman Thompson and Vaayu to reduce our CO2 footprint in ecommerce, while delivering continuous growth towards our business. Our vision at Bayer is ‘Health for All, Hunger for none’ and partnering with ventures such as Vaayu will further accelerate the delivery of our sustainability targets.”

Wunderman Thompson Commerce global chief client success officer Ruth Zohrer added: “Realising carbon reduction – rather than offsets – has proven challenging for many companies but we have confidence that we can find ways to achieve this and get clients like Bayer closer to their net zero targets.

“The pilot is a true reflection of Bayer’s commitment to deliver ecommerce in a sustainable way, and our joint effort will hopefully reassure consumers that there is a commitment in place to drive genuine change. We’re still early in this journey, yet recognise tangible action is needed and hope this pilot will inspire others to reassess the impact from their commerce operations.”

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