Coop Group

Challenge

Companies are under pressure to adopt credible science-based targets (SBTs) as part of their climate strategies. Coop Group was looking to develop its own SBTs, which would require a solid roadmap. This was a major undertaking given the complexity of the group, which is one of Switzerland’s biggest employers.

Because of Quantis’ extensive experience and climate expertise, the firm was tapped to support in this endeavor. The aim was to deliver a climate strategy that would function at both the wider group level and across the major individual business units. This required highly skilled consultants and proficient project management, especially given that various parallel work streams would need to run simultaneously.

Solutions

Over the course of two years, Quantis delivered the project with three crucial steps:

1. Establish a robust baseline

The project team defined a clear and robust climate strategy by assessing the current baseline. Complying with the GHG Protocol, the team calculated the carbon footprint of Coop Group’s major business units along its entire value chain based on current scientific consensus – including emission factors from databases such as Quantis’ World Food LCA Database (WFLDB).

2. Develop an impact reduction roadmap for major business units

Building on the carbon footprint assessment, the team conducted workshops with each business unit to: (1) develop individual climate roadmaps, (2) identify and prioritize relevant reduction actions and (3) test their feasibility. The internal flow of products between business units and climate actions with interdependencies (e.g., dairy production improvement) were accounted for to provide Coop Group with the best possible basis for decisions. This resulted in a final roadmap.

3. Establish science-based targets

With a clear baseline for the carbon footprint, Quantis was able to calculate three potential trajectories for different targets. Quantis then facilitated a strategic workshop with the Coop Group climate team to assess and advise on these options to support the Coop Group in its decision making process.

Involving key stakeholders at the start of the process brought clear alignment and helped gain buy-in from all the business units. Ultimately, this cultivated a greater sense of ownership among internal stakeholders.

Results

A notable achievement was delivering individual roadmaps for the seven major business units along with an aggregated roadmap for the entire group. As a result, Coop Group gained a concrete understanding of its own hotspots across each key business area with an established set of actions to reach its SBTs.

The roadmap is helping Coop Group by providing:

• Ownership to key stakeholders as agents for change
• Credibility among external stakeholders and staff for implementing climate actions
• Valuable insights into the potential challenges, risks and opportunities of each possible action

• Science-based goals + target setting

• Climate

• Food + Beverage