From document to an interactive website

Lebensbaum is not just the organic food shop that was founded 40 years ago. It is the brand name of a group of companies that includes the PureTaste Group, Ulrich Walter GmbH, Niehoffs Kaffeerösterei and Biologx. All four companies share the same views and goals, especially in the sustainability area. Therefore, a merger under the Lebensbaum brand was the logical consequence.

Sustainability is a top priority at Lebensbaum. The corporate group regularly demonstrates this in environmental statements and sustainability reports. These reports have been prepared every three years since 2006 according to the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The final versions are released as digital flipbooks on the website. The sustainability report of 2019 comprised more than 200 pages and has been awarded in the CSR reporting of the best sustainability reports. However, such a comprehensive flipbook also comes with disadvantages. For example, the finished PDF file, which is the basis for conversion into an interactive e-book, can only be indexed by search engines as a complete document. This means that individual sections or topics cannot be found via a search on the web. Although the links between the contents are also difficult to map, the biggest problem with a flipbook of this size is that it is not suitable for mobile devices and also produces too high data load on the user. It is possible to open the report on a smartphone, but the readability is insufficient. Moreover, it was not an open standard, which no longer met the requirements of the client and Monday Consulting in terms of accessibility. Lebensbaum has recognized these problems and decided to digitize future sustainability reports fully.

The goal for the new sustainability report was a high-performance presentation of structured, closely linked content with low running costs. The goal for the new sustainability report was a high-performance presentation of structured, closely linked content with low running costs.

As Monday Consulting has been developing Lebensbaum's website since 2014, the Hamburg agency was also commissioned as the implementation partner for this project. The greatest challenge this time was to maintain the original character of the award-winning sustainability report. However, a technical solution should be used that causes no or only low running costs and is suitable for use on all end devices.

Lebensbaum and Monday Consulting decided to use the content management system Strapi as the basis for the new website. In the headless CMS, content is created independently of the target design and can be structured and linked there. Strapi then makes the data available via an API, which is then played out by a modern Next.js application in the desired design. Due to the technical separation of content and design, the CMS is kept lean and can be used at this scale without licensing costs.

Linking the contents offers Lebensbaum another huge advantage. For the sustainability report, the group of companies has to fulfill many requirements (GRIs). Due to the modern form of presentation, it is now possible to assign different certification numbers to each article and graphic. For the reader, the ramifications of the topics thus become much more plausible. In addition, for the first time, several languages can be published. The Sustainability Report 2022 is thus available in German, English, and French.

By digitizing the report, Lebensbaum emphasizes the importance of sustainability. The content is not only laid out more clearly, but can also be accessed on mobile devices. In addition, each page and article can be individually optimized for search engines or used for social media postings. In this way, the online presence is significantly increased. Both the content and the design can be edited or supplemented independently. Instead of a (PDF) document, Monday Consulting created an interactive website for Lebensbaum. For future sustainability reports, the company can use the design and technology and publish more quickly – without ongoing costs. Lebensbaum wants to take full advantage of these benefits and has announced that from now on, it will publish an up-to-date sustainability report annually – instead of only every three years. The latest sustainability report is available on nachhaltigkeit.lebensbaum.com