Consultation on proposed new criteria for grocery stores

Nordic Ecolabelling gives you the opportunity to comment on the proposal for new criteria for Grocery stores. Your comments are important and will be considered by the national ecolabelling boards and the Nordic Ecolabelling Board.

The Nordic Swan Ecolabel is assessed from a life cycle perspective and places high demands on the environment and health.  

Please find the proposed criteria for download further down on this page.

We look forward to your comments, which should be sent to Nordic Ecolabelling no later than 2 April 2023.

Nordic Swan Ecolabel grocery stores

A Nordic Swan Ecolabel grocery store has a holistic approach to its environmental activities. It concerns everything from the stores range of products and energy use to how efficiently the store sort its waste and try to minimize its food waste.

A Nordic Swan Ecolabelled grocery store:

• Has a good selection of ecolabelled and organic products in its assortment
• Is operated energy efficiently to minimize the effect on the climate
• Has a focus on sorting of waste and on minimizing food waste to spare the resources of the planet.

What has been changed?

• In the assortment area, the limit value for proportion of sales of organic + MSC and ecolabelled has been tightened. When calculating the percentage of ecolabels, the store's entire non-food assortment is now counted, not just consumables. New requirements have been added with the aim of promoting more sustainable food production. Like for example ban on GMOs and point requirements for locally produced and deforestation-free meat.
• Requirements concerning the store's food waste have been highlighted and developed. Mandatory requirements for analysis and work with preventive measures have been added.
• The area of energy and climate has developed with demands on the store's work with energy-saving measures. Daily energy savings and climate measures are required. Requirements are also placed on new purchases of energy-intensive equipment. The energy tool that was the basis for the energy requirement in the previous generation has been removed, as well as the associated limit value.
• The limit value for the amount of residual waste that the store is allowed to generate has been tightened. In the area of waste, requirements for measuring organic waste have also been added, as well as a mandatory requirement for sorting.
• The requirement placed on the store's purchase of goods and services for its own use has changed in such a way that it is now mandatory to use 100% Nordic Swan Ecolabel printed matter and 100% ecolabelled tissue paper. What is also new is that the shop can get points if they buy a Nordic Swan Ecolabel coffee service.
• A new area of demand for this generation is transport for online services. The requirements apply only to stores where goods are picked up in the physical store. Demands are then placed on the purchase of new vehicles, logistics for efficient transport and training in eco-driving for drivers.
• Another new requirement area is management's responsibility. Personnel must be trained to e.g., have knowledge of what it means for the store to be Nordic Swan Ecolabel, what they can contribute to environmental work and how environmental work can be communicated to customers.

We are particularly interested in the following

Naturally, we would like views and comments on the whole proposal, but particularly interested in receiving views on:

• O1 and P1 Proposed limit values for proportion of organic + MSC.
• O2 and P2 Proposed limit values for proportion of eco-labelled.
  We welcome comments on proposed limit values, but also any suggestions for limit values based on your own calculations on the proportion of sales of organic and eco-labelled products.
• P3 Locally produced goods. How likely is it to get points here?
• P4 Deforestation-free meat. A new regulation from the EU regarding deforestation means that we are proposing requirements around this. As a first step at a point level and we gratefully accept opinions on this.
• O10 Climate action. What does the opportunity look like for the store to get the mandatory 4 points?

Documents for download

• Criteria proposal
• Calculating sheet

Who can provide input?

All people, companies and institutions who are interested in taking part in the development work of Nordic Ecolabelling criteria for Grocery stores can provide us with their opinions and comments. We would appreciate if you kindly distribute information about this review to whom it may concern.

How can comments be sent in?

Your input is most valuable to our criteria development. We prefer to receive your answers via mail for each country.

For further questions, please contact our product specialists

Sweden

Sanna Wihlborg
E-mail: sanna.wihlborg@svanen.se or remiss@svanen.se
Telephone: +46 76 941 28 49

Norway

Barkha Agrawal
E-mail: ba@svanemerket.no or post@svanemerket.no
Telephone: +47 24 14 46 23

Denmark

Lise Glad
E-mail: lgl@ecolabel.dk or hoeringssvar@ecolabel.dk
Telephone: +45 72 41 48 13

Finland

Harri Hotulainen
E-mail: harri.hotulainen@ecolabel.fi or joutsen@ecolabel.fi
Telephone: +358 9 6122 5108

Iceland
Birgitta Stefánsdóttir
E-mail: birgitta.stefansdottir@ecolabel.is
Telephone: +354 591 2000

What happens next?

When the consultation period is completed, the answers will be compiled and evaluated. For this reason, a new revised proposal for criteria will be submitted to the national ecolabelling boards and committees. On this basis, the Nordic Ecolabelling Board will then decide on new criteria.

Part of the decision document is the summary of all hearing responses together with answers from Nordic Ecolabelling. The summary will be public and available on the Nordic Swan Ecolabel web page in connection with the publication of the new criteria.

We look forward to receiving your comments no later than 2 April 2023.