The Hermes Logistik Gruppe Germany (HLGD) is the cotton initiative's Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) newest partner. Since November, the company expects to outfit its 13,000 parcel delivery staff in Germany with cotton made according to the environmental and social standards of Cotton made in Africa. Hermes and CmiA will thus support around 475,000 CmiA cotton farmers who produce the raw material on the African continent using sustainable methods.

The Otto Group processes over 125 million deliveries annually for its customers through the Group’s own logistics service provider, Hermes. About 40 per cent of this is delivered as parcels. Now, the internationally active retail and service group has optimised the size of its boxes: this reduces the transport volume in the delivery of goods ordered from companies in the Otto Group by more than 500 truckloads per year. The benefit for the environment and efficiency means that some 170 tonnes of CO2 emissions can be eliminated.

Hermes is expanding its Germany operations to include a new distribution centre in Langenhagen near Hanover. A total of 35 million euros has been invested in the new site that will provide work for 150 full-time employees. The hub will be handed over in January 2011 and will process up to 60 million parcel a year, deploying state-of-the-art sorting technology.

Despite the pre-Christmas snow chaos and kilometre-long tailbacks on Germany’s roads, Hermes kept its Christmas delivery promise in a record 99.3 percent of deliveries, while shipping 20 percent more parcels than the previous year.

The Hermes Logistik Gruppe (HLG) and DPD are currently examining ways of intensifying their previously intermittent alliance. At present, the two companies are looking into ways of providing common services and into leveraging synergies arising from the cooperative exploitation of the available infrastructure and transport capacities.

The Hermes Logistik Gruppe (HLG) will be extending its executive board with effect from 1 March 2009. The new senior manager with responsibility for finance, IT, HR security and facilities will be Dr. Philip Nölling (42), who will be joining Hermes from within the Otto Group. In his current position as financial vice president, he is centrally responsible for the finances of the worldwide-operating Otto Group.

Hermes CEO Hanjo Schneider has been appointed to the executive board of the Otto Group with responsibility for Services from 1 February 2009. As a result, there will be changes at the top at the Hermes Logistik Gruppe (HLG). In addition to his board activities, from 1 July 2008 Hanjo Schneider will also be responsible for developing a European consortium within the HLG. New chairman of the HLG executive board will be Harmut Ilek. The transport logistics unit headed by Frank Rausch will be positioned on the international market as an independent company.

In a to-date unique project, the Hermes Logistik Gruppe analysed the environmental compatibility of its logistics services across Germany. The ParcelShop study shows that through the continual expansion of the now 13,500 acceptance points in the Hermes ParcelShop network, car miles and the related emissions of damaging carbon-dioxide have been reduced. As this externally verified study showed, carbon-dioxide emissions per parcel dropped significantly between August 2006 and August 2007. In total, the company cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 5,700 tonnes.