Putting Berlin on the Map: COSH! Launches Conscious Shopping Guide in the German Capital

COSH! Unveils New Conscious Shopping Guide in Berlin, Empowering Eco-Conscious Fashion Choices.

To promote more sustainable fashion and lifestyle choices, the Belgian platform COSH! has launched a unique, pocket-sized shopping guide in Berlin. The printed map, which is free of charge, highlights the city’s local, sustainable and circular fashion scene through a carefully curated list of boutiques and designers.

BERLIN, GERMANY, 25.04.2024

Empowering Local Boutiques and Innovative Designers

COSH! Conscious Shopping Made Easy, a European platform for more sustainable fashion and lifestyle choices, has launched its latest pocket-sized Berlin shopping guide highlighting the city’s most sustainable boutiques and independent, forward-thinking designers. The map is free of charge and provides visibility and accessibility to Berlin’s local sustainable fashion scene, making a more conscious lifestyle even easier for locals and shopping tourists to discover.

Showcasing Berlin’s Thriving Sustainable Fashion Scene

COSH!, renowned for guiding consumers to more eco-conscious shopping choices, has launched its latest pocket-sized conscious shopping guide in Berlin. Slow and mindful shopping in the German capital has never been easier, thanks to the Belgian start-up following its merge with Green Fashion Tours Germany. COSH! has rigorously screened over a thousand brands and welcomed around 30 Berlin boutiques into its membership scheme. The unique guide covers clothing, jewellery, homeware, second-hand items, lifestyle articles and culinary delights.

The guide spotlights distinguished local designers and innovative stores, crafting thoughtful products for busy consumers who lack the time to research sustainability credentials on their own. Each featured store in the guide has been meticulously vetted and interviewed, ensuring it prioritises ethical practices and sustainability over profit. This rigorous selection process offers a unique and local shopping journey, fostering a deeper connection between consumers and conscientious brands.

Designer and Boutique Spotlights

Discover the hidden gems along Berlin’s less-travelled paths and visit conscious stores like JYOTI — FAIR WORKS, which offers organic apparel crafted in partnership with two Indian NGOs, and vincente, known for its handknit classics made from premium natural Italian yarns. Head over to WESEN to discover timeless tailoring in the atelier and store, or visit Clara Kaesdorf in Schöneberg, famed for her unique prints showcased at numerous European fashion weeks. Admire wearable sculptures at Atelier Elle Pé in Kreuzberg, a jewellery brand transforming bamboo sculptures into moulds for wax, in which recycled silver or gold is poured, creating individual jewellery pieces, each with its own unique story. Longing for connection? Visit supermarché and frau wald herr.. Both stores are community hubs, offering a blend of educational programmes, workshops, culinary delights and ethically produced clothing. Finally, don’t forget to explore Berlin’s pioneering NochMall, the city’s first department store dedicated to second-hand items. This innovative space offers upcycling workshops and a repair café, spanning over 2,000 square metres of cherished preloved goods.

The map boasts an expansive list of member stores distributed around the city’s most popular districts, including Prenzlauer Berg, Mitte, and Kreuzberg, making a strong statement for local shopping. In today’s hyper-digital world, a pocket-sized printed map provides the liberty to personalise, share, and access information easily, serving as a free and personal resource to develop more conscious consumption habits.

Strength in Numbers

COSH! acquired Green Fashion Tours in 2023, developing and expanding the unique model within Berlin and beyond to redefine consumption and tourism. The joint venture lays the groundwork for a responsible, community– and environmentally-oriented retail sector.

Niki de Schryver, CEO of COSH!, states, ​“When I first visited Berlin in 2019 using the Green Fashion Tours map, the pioneering spirit of the local sustainability-focused shops struck me. This experience inspired us to build on Arianna’s foundational work to bring COSH!‘s vision to Germany.”

The Future of Retail

According to a PwC survey, German consumers have changed their attitude to physical stores. While they previously expected a broad product range, they now see stores as community places to experience products and brands and access additional services. Consumers expect sales associates to have deep knowledge of the product range, while increased environmental awareness redefines brick-and-mortar retail and consumer behaviour rules.

COSH! acts as an experienced partner to help entrepreneurs throughout Berlin and other urban hubs throughout Europe successfully transition into the retail spaces of the future through radical collaboration and networking.

COSH!‘s innovative sustainability approach includes a detailed indexing system that evaluates the brands sold by member stores on various sustainability criteria, such as ethics, ecological impact, and circularity. This system will be instrumental in transparently guiding Berlin’s tourists and locals towards more sustainable fashion and lifestyle choices, thereby supporting local crafters, designers and entrepreneurs.

“Unlike many platforms that label products as sustainable with limited verification or primarily promote online shopping — with its inherent challenges such as returns — we at COSH! cherish the social spirit of physical shopping. Our platform rigorously assesses the brands in our membership stores, ensuring that we offer both credibility and a more engaging, trustworthy shopping experience to both locals and visitors alike,” says Niki de Schryver.

The Retail Sector in Crisis

The statement map cannot come early enough. Germany’s retail landscape is undergoing a further alarming transformation, with the German Retail Federation (Handelsverband Deutschland, HDE) projecting the closure of approximately 9,000 stores this year alone. This ongoing phenomenon, titled ​“Ladensterben” or store death, reflects the deeper economic challenges store owners are facing, including dwindling consumer purchasing power and escalating operational costs, which have rendered the continuation of many physical stores unviable. The surging popularity of online shopping has also impacted the traditional retail foundation, with many consumers opting for anonymity, instant gratification and convenience. 

However, COSH!’s community — and environmentally-centred store network has successfully navigated the ongoing retail crisis, offering alternative store concepts and experiences outside the prevalent consumption bubble.

Support Your Local Retailer

For those eager to support conscious local designers and stores, COSH!’s new printed shopping map is available for free at numerous participating locations throughout Berlin. To discover where to pick up a copy near you, click here. Join COSH! in transforming fashion consumption into a force for good.

About COSH! Conscious Shopping Made Easy

COSH! (Conscious Shopping Made Easy) is a dynamic Belgian-born platform that simplifies finding sustainable fashion and lifestyle choices like zero-waste food stores or vegan restaurants. Founded by Niki de Schryver, COSH! addresses the gap between consumer behaviour and more sustainable supply chains by offering an easy-to-navigate, more transparent guide to ethical fashion and lifestyle products. By assessing more than a thousand brands across multiple sustainability metrics, COSH! helps consumers make informed choices that align with their values and lifestyles. COSH! acquired Green Fashion Tours in 2023 and is active in five German cities. Its recent city collaboration with Visit Düsseldorf is the first of its kind in Germany. The platform has numerous city collaborations across four countries in total and is featured in five languages.