FRANCE. Lagardère Travel Retail and eight other French retailers have formally launched the Low Emission Sustainable Sourcing (LESS) platform, a sustainability collective aimed at reducing CO₂ emissions across the supply chain in the retail sector. The move was initially flagged in July, as reported.
Coordinated by Perifem and the Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution (FCD), LESS brings together nine founding retailers – Lagardère Travel Retail, Carrefour, E.Leclerc, Intermarché, Coopérative U, Lidl, Auchan, Casino and METRO France – and already counts more than 150 suppliers among its participants.
The platform, powered by OpenClimat, offers suppliers a single interface to report their carbon data across all participating retailers, which the partners say will “simplify processes and improve transparency across the value chain”.
Making the platform operational today (19 November), the participating retailers reaffirmed their shared ambition to accelerate the decarbonisation of their operations and of their suppliers’ activities.
Noting that more than 90% of retail-related emissions stem from Scope 3, the collaboration marks a decisive step toward more effective, data-driven carbon reduction strategies, they said.
“The launch of LESS transforms an ambitious idea into concrete action,” said Lagardère Travel Retail VP CSR Arnaud Rolland, who spoke at the official launch event in Paris. “By joining forces with our peers and partners, we’re building a unified approach that will enable the entire industry to move faster and further in its decarbonisation journey.”
Validated by the French Competition Authority, LESS is open to all French and European retailers and foodservice operators. A Stakeholder Committee (Comité des Parties Prenantes) gathering Perifem, FCD and key industry federations has been created to guide and strengthen the initiative’s collective governance.
The launch of LESS aligns with the Planet pillar of Lagardère Travel Retail’s PEPS CSR strategy (Planet, Ethics, People, Social), through which the company aims to achieve a -25% absolute reduction in Scope 3 carbon emissions by 2030, using 2024 as the base year, validated by Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) requirements. ✈
