A family-run Intersport franchise in northern Germany has claimed the retail industry’s top sustainability design honor, showing how a regional operator can embed circularity into a €4 million store refit.
A family-owned sports retailer from northern Germany has won one of retail’s most coveted design accolades, taking the Sustainability category at the EuroShop RetailDesign Award (ERDA) on Feb. 24, 2026.
Intersport Finke, a franchise member of Intersport Deutschland, was recognized for the circular-economy principles embedded in its redesigned store in Bielefeld – a mid-sized city in North Rhine-Westphalia, roughly equidistant between Dortmund and Hanover. The award was presented on the third day of EuroShop, the world’s largest retail trade fair, held in Düsseldorf. The Finke concept beat 122 competing projects from 30 countries across five categories: Food, Fashion & Lifestyle, Hospitality and Digital.
Circular refit: How Intersport Finke turned waste into €4m store design
The Bielefeld store represents a significant strategic shift for the Finke family business, which converted a multi-generational fashion retail property into a sports specialist over a 13-week refit completed in September 2024. Owner Markus Finke invested approximately €4 million in the transformation, delivering around 2,000 square meters of sales space across three floors.
What set the project apart for the ERDA jury was its systematic approach to material reuse and energy efficiency. Eight cubic meters of reclaimed timber from the former fashion store’s basement were recovered and channeled back into the supply chain via Egger, an Austrian wood-based panels manufacturer and Intersport partner, for reprocessing. By augmenting that salvaged material with high-recycled-content particleboard, the total wood volume incorporated into the new store reached 13 cubic meters – a volume the project team calculates bound around 5 tons of CO2 equivalents. Existing structural columns and shelving systems from the old retail fit-out were retained and repurposed as storage infrastructure rather than sent to landfill.
Energy efficiency measures extended throughout the build. Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) systems now govern heating, cooling and ventilation, cutting energy consumption compared to conventional installations. Flooring in the store carries the Blauer Engel (Blue Angel) ecolabel – Germany’s government-backed environmental certification – and LED lighting is deployed across all areas. Digital screens and displays were selected in line with Green IT criteria, prioritizing low power draw and intelligent energy management.
The recognition carries weight beyond the design community. Alexander von Preen, Chief Executive Officer of Intersport Deutschland, has held up the Finke project as evidence for the group’s “BEST IN SPORTS: UP FOR FUTURE” sustainability strategy, saying that circular shopfitting improves both the environmental balance sheet and long-term operating economics through lower energy and maintenance costs.
About the EuroShop RetailDesign Award
The EuroShop RetailDesign Award has been presented since 2008 by the EHI Retail Institute—a Cologne-based research organization for the retail sector—together with Messe Düsseldorf, the trade fair operator. The 2026 edition covered five categories. Alongside Finke’s sustainability prize, winners included MediaMarkt Tech Village (Hamburg, Digital), House of Silhouette (Vienna, Fashion & Lifestyle), Cyberculture Supermarket (Lviv, Ukraine, Food) and Casa Garbo (Lima, Hospitality).
EuroShop itself runs Feb. 22–26, 2026 in Düsseldorf. The sector’s flagship event for retail technology, store design and supply chain innovation draws buyers and exhibitors from more than 60 countries.
