Butterfly & Elephant, the investment company of GS1 Germany, is participating in the Munich-based startup Hey Circle. The investor, based in Cologne, announced this in a press release. Hey Circle develops reusable shipping packaging and offers a digital solution for tracking the packaging. The aim is to reduce waste and CO2 emissions in online retail and to promote the circular economy in the shipping process.
The investment by Butterfly & Elephant, according to GS1, is intended to help disseminate the use
of reusable packaging solutions in e-commerce and to establish data standards as a basis for sustainable logistics processes.
"Hey Circle makes sustainability scalable. The team combines ecological responsibility with economic strength. Our investment promotes a model that, with the help of GS1 standards, brings sustainable innovation into existing value chains," said Benjamin Birker, Managing Director at Butterfly & Elephant.
Each Hey Circle packaging is equipped with a unique GRAI code (Global Returnable Asset Identifier). This makes it possible to trace the
movements of the individual containers and calculate the savings achieved, according to the provider.
GTIN as an identification option
In addition, the Munich-based startup uses the GTIN (formerly EAN) to uniquely identify different packaging types and to manage inventories across locations. The application of GS1 standards creates a common data basis and facilitates integration into existing logistics processes.
"The use of GS1 standards such as GTIN and GRAI enables us to uniquely identify packaging and to transparently capture sustainability data. In
this way, the circular economy becomes measurable and usable for companies," says Doris Diebold, founder and managing director of Hey Circle.
According to the startup, the reusable packaging reduces waste by around 94 percent, CO2 emissions by 76 percent, and packaging costs by 53 percent compared to single-use boxes. The accompanying software automatically captures these values according to the provider and makes them available for ESG reporting. This provides companies with a data basis to integrate environmental metrics into their sustainability
