ICA, Coop and Axfood Now Share One Carbon Footprint Method Across 120,000 Products

Sweden's leading grocery retailers, ICA Sweden, Coop Sweden, and Axfood, have adopted a unified carbon footprint methodology for over 120,000 food products, facilitated by the Stockholm-based company FoodFacts. This initiative, which covers approximately 90% of the Swedish grocery market, provides weekly carbon footprint figures essential for the retailers' Scope 3 emissions reporting. The method enables the identification of emission hotspots within their product assortments, allowing for prioritized reduction efforts.

Developed in collaboration with the Swedish Food Retailers’ Federation and the Swedish Food Federation, the methodology was established by the research institute RISE in 2023. FoodFacts automates the carbon footprint calculations by integrating product details such as ingredients, packaging, and geographical origin with life-cycle data, ensuring that products are compared accurately. This shared approach not only enhances climate reporting for the industry but also strengthens efforts toward sustainability by enabling retailers to assess both plant-based and animal-based products with the same rigor.