CASE STUDY:

SAMSONITE AUSTRALIA

Tony Griffiths
Operations & HR Manager for Samsonite Australia and New Zealand

We were just puttering along with our previous cleaning provider and staff would come to me asking why we couldn’t get this or that done, so we were looking at changing when I got a call from The Planet Earth. When I organised a visit I was impressed with the ethos, and their competitive pricing.

We did our due diligence and we looked at several places, but in the end, even if it had been a matter of a few dollars here or there the ethos would have won anyway. Our company has a strong ethos too; we’re committing to be carbon neutral globally by 2030. We’re also signatories to the Australian Packaging Covenant, which means that our packaging by 2025 should be either recyclable, reusable or compostable. Working with Planet Earth Cleaning enhances our credibility with that group and it certainly serves a great purpose going towards carbon neutrality.

In 2018, we released the Spark Eco collection, our first eco range for Samsonite made of textiles engineered from 100% recycled plastic bottles. The release of Spark Eco marked a huge leap forward for Samsonite in creating and bringing eco-friendly products to the market and that was just the beginning. Over 2018 and 2019, we released a whole range of eco products across Samsonite brands and we intend to continue to increase the number of products made from recycled materials going forward as part of our commitment to sustainability. From a business perspective, consumers are demanding more and as a company we’re committed to being on board with it.

Before working with The Planet Earth, we had challenges with attention to detail and responsiveness, we’d ask for things to happen, and they wouldn’t. Whereas the Planet Earth Team have a real commitment and drive towards communication, which is rare, I’m very grateful for that mechanism, they use it to make sure that they’re getting the job right, and their commitment to it.

In the years to come, I hope as a society we’ve got ourselves organised and we have some clear leadership from our government in environmental sustainability. There’s got to be some sort of direction and leadership that says you need to be a little more responsible.