Beautiful things from around the world have long been the motto at Guru-Shop. Most of our products come from smaller family businesses with whom we have been working for a long time. This allows us to trace their origin and help ensure that they are created and traded under sustainable conditions.
A careful handling of materials and resources, environmentally friendly transports as well as fair working conditions at the manufacturers and in our company are important to us. In many areas we have already achieved a lot - in others there is still room for improvement.
On this page you can learn more about the already realized and the planned steps towards more sustainability.
Shipping
We have changed our shipping to a large extent: All orders that we ship with DHL or a freight forwarder are now climate neutral. With DHL GoGreen, which we use, the greenhouse gas emissions are reduced or 100% compensated by worldwide climate protection projects.
Packaging
We reduce packaging to the necessary extent and increasingly use recycled and compostable materials instead of plastic:
- Plastic packaging is replaced as far as possible with environmentally friendly materials such as paper and cardboard. For those products where this is not possible in the short term, we are working towards this.
- We already use only die-cut cardboard as padding and filling material. This is obtained by our in-house shredder from cardboard boxes that are no longer used, such as those generated by return shipments.
In planning:
- In the near future, all shipping cartons will also be made from recycled cardboard
- packing tape made of paper instead of plastic.
Returns
In contrast to common practice at many online retailers, returned items are not destroyed:
- We offer items with minor defects and optical flaws as B-goods at a special price.
- If a product is damaged, it will first be repaired in our workshop and then also offered at a special price.
- In case of complaints where repair is not possible, we do not return the product.
Due to the additional transport, returns cause climate-damaging emissions as well as a lot of effort. Clothing in particular is often returned because the size does not fit or is different than assumed. To avoid this, the measurements of each item of clothing are now shown on a picture in the product description. This way, the right size can be determined in advance, which avoids wrong orders and helps the environment.
In our warehouse and office
- To meet our energy needs from renewable sources, we have installed a photovoltaic system on the roof of the warehouse, which in total generates more than the electricity needed in our operations.
- Our buildings are heated with a CO2-neutral wood heating system
- Within the company premises, goods are transported by electric cargo bikes and an E-TukTuk
- Due to the digitalization of the work processes, the need for paper has been reduced by 80%.
- The toner cartridges produced during printing are recycled.