L.E.S.S.
Low Emission Sustainable Sourcing
Over the past several years, major retail brands have engaged in an effort to rise to the challenge of climate change, either on their own initiative or jointly:
Reducing direct and indirect emissions
Improving the sustainable management of their activities
Promoting an offer of responsibly sourced products
On average, 96% of greenhouse gas emissions from retailers are indirect emissions (77% caused by the products they sell and 19% arising from the use of those products by consumers). The remaining 4% are emissions that fall under scopes 1 and 2.
McKinsey survey for EuroCommerce, Transforming the EU retail and wholesale sector – Sustainability, Digitalization, Skills, October 2022, page 15.
A joint effort
The L.E.S.S. program aims to organize cooperation with suppliers of major retailers, with the dual goal of:
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quantifying the carbon emissions generated by the products made by industrial manufacturers (including manufacturers of own-brand products);
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encouraging suppliers to make their own commitments to reduce their carbon footprint or to publicize commitments they have already made.
L.E.S.S. as an approach is both:
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Sector-based: initiated by 11 brands in the large-scale retail sector, including supermarket brands and specialized goods retailers, through their trade federations FCD and Perifem. Any retailers who are interested, whether joined one of the 2 organizations or not, are encouraged to join this program that offers a fresh opportunity to establish business models that are more resilient and sustainable.
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Collaborative: discussions are being held jointly with manufacturers and their representative organizations to identify what is needed and ways of working together, always in strict compliance with competition law.
As part of those efforts, there is a plan to set up a shared platform for the collection of data on suppliers' carbon emissions for the purpose of:
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Simplifying the process of depositing data for suppliers by creating a single interface shared by all the brands involved in the effort;
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Make it easier for the retail brands to collect, process, and keep track of the data;
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Obtain data that are reliable, comparable, and pooled among all the brands involved;
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mote the establishment of a platform at the European level.
The data collected on that platform will enable the retail brands to quantify their emissions and set out their decarbonization strategies, in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
The Paris Climate Agreement commits the signatory States to maintaining global warming to well below 2°C by 2100, while continuing to pursue their efforts to keep that rise in global warming below 1.5°C. Those trajectories require an annual reduction in carbon emissions of at least 2.5% for the first objective and at least 4.2% for the second.
In order to outline the form of the envisaged platform, studies have been undertaken to specify the needs of both the manufacturers and the retail brands. On that basis, work groups have been meeting to hammer out the technical specifications of the future platform. Next, a call for expressions of interest will then be published in order to receive proposals from potential service providers.
May to
september 2024
Description of needs
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10 brands interviewed
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10 suppliers interviewed via 2 manufacturers' trade federations
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Reviews of 6 existing platforms for the collection of carbon emissions data
September to November 2024
Finalization of the retailers' needs
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1 meeting to recap the description of needs, in collaboration with the manufacturers' trade federations
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2 work group meetings dedicated to drawing up the technical specifications
December 2024
Publication of the Call for Expression of Interest
All of these efforts are led jointly by FCD and Perifem.
Pre-selection questionnaire
The objective of the call for expressions of interest (CFE) is to collectively identify the platform, or platforms where applicable, that can meet the needs of the brands. The volunteer brands will then enter into individual contracts with the platform.
This questionnaire covers some of the requirements of the CFE, which will be studied as a priority as part of the pre-selection of candidates to be interviewed. The answers to the other requirements must be included in the attachments to the questionnaire.
The evaluation of applications will be based on the criteria listed in the CFE, the full and detailed version of which can be viewed here.
The questionnaire can be completed in several stages and saved. It can be downloaded. For any additional questions, please use the contact form also available on this portal.
Applications must be submitted by January 17th 2025 before midnight at the latest.
The pre-selected candidates will be interviewed by a committee representing brands between February 10th and 14th and will be evaluated on all the criteria listed in the CFE.
Contact us
To be informed of the launch of the call for tenders, please fill out this form.