Europe 1 with AFP 5:34 p.m., March 12, 2024

The sports brand Decathlon announced on Tuesday March 12 that it wanted to rebuild its economic model.

The distributor plans to remove several brands from its shelves and focus on more ecological production, aiming in particular to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions within two years.

The sporting goods distributor Decathlon intends to "simplify" its portfolio of brands, reducing them from several dozen to a dozen, it made official this Tuesday, March 12.

The brand also presented a strategic plan aimed at reducing its carbon emissions by 20% by 2026. The store chain will become the second favorite brand of the French in 2023.

Remove certain brands in favor of others

Decathlon, which has 100,000 employees and 1,700 stores in more than 70 countries, plans to consolidate its brand portfolio "with 9 specialized categories", including Quechua for the mountains, Tribord for water and wind, Kipsta for team sports. or Btwin for “urban sliding”.

“4 expert brands” are also concerned: Van Rysel (road cycling), Simond (mountain climbing), Kiprun (running) and Solognac (hunting).

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The objective for these last four, which can be distributed outside Decathlon stores, is to compete with the best manufacturers, Fabien Brosse, product and sports manager, said on Tuesday.

The brand presented its strategic plan on Tuesday in Paris, during a "show" with dancers and athletes including cyclists from the professional team it recently sponsored, as well as judoka Teddy Riner.

Barbara Martin Coppola, Franco-Spanish who worked for Ikea, Google and YouTube and who became general director of Decathlon at the start of 2022, explained that she wanted to continue to "make sport accessible to everyone and at all levels", via "the modernization of entire economic model.

A more environmentally friendly model

The group also intends to reduce its direct and indirect carbon emissions (scopes 1, 2 and 3) by 20% by 2026, by 42% by 2030 (the reference year is not specified) and "net zero 'by 2050", particularly through the development of product reuse.

Decathlon was singled out in 2022 by the Dutch Consumer and Markets Authority for using the vague term “ecodesign”.

“We must do our part for society and for the planet,” said Barbara Martin Coppola, “not only as a sports distributor but as a sports brand, we have everything we need to fulfill this mission” .

The manager indicated in Les Echos that she wanted to “increase the desirability of the Decathlon brand, so that people recognize it as a brand that has strong values”.

She also says she wants to develop the "services associated with our products: communities of practitioners, information on the practice, running or cycling routes, personalized offers based on progress in the practice".

Decathlon achieved 15.4 billion euros in turnover in 2022, the last financial year for which the results are known.