HowGood climate impact labels to be displayed on food products at COP28

Today, HowGood, a sustainability intelligence platform with the world's largest ingredient and product sustainability database, announces a partnership with Majid Al Futtaim which operates Carrefour in the UAE, to bring its climate labels to food products at COP28 in order to highlight sustainable choices for shoppers and celebrate product impact transparency. Starting on November 28, those visiting the Carrefour stores located at Mall of the Emirates, City Centre Deira, and City Centre Mirdif, Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 3 and its store at COP28 will be able to identify the environmental and social impact of their food purchase through three labels provided by HowGood, including product carbon footprints and comprehensive sustainability attributes.

HowGood’s sustainability insights on over 33,000 food ingredients provide both retailers and food brands with the granular data required for sustainability storytelling that resonates with consumers. The Carrefour stores featuring HowGood labels will utilize SES-imagotag’s digital shelf edge tags for 2,500 food products, allowing for seamless visibility where consumers are making purchasing decisions. The three labels bring transparency to areas of global concern with regard to reducing the food industry’s impact on climate change, including:

Product Carbon Footprint: A measure of the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) of a product, from cradle-to-shelf.

Comprehensive HowGood Sustainability Rating: Products that receive HowGood's "Best" rating have a social and environmental impact better than 95% of all products assessed by HowGood. Those rated “Great” are better than 85%, and those rated “Good” are better than 70%. Sustainability ratings are also part of Carrefour’s “Choose Better” program, which is also launching at COP28.

Product Sustainability Attributes: Shoppers looking for insight into additional areas of climate concern can use HowGood’s attributes to identify products that: use less water than average in their production (Water Smart), have lower greenhouse gas emissions than average (Climate Friendly), have a simple formula with seven or fewer ingredients (Clean Label), are made with ingredients that are not dependent on commercial or industrial processing (Minimally Processed) and respect workers’ rights and dignity (Fair Labor).

HowGood’s labels have been proven to help guide shoppers toward more sustainable offerings. For example, in a recent engagement with SES-imagotag in London, the use of HowGood attributes increased product sales on average by 25.8%, and the use of the Fair Labor attribute, in particular, saw a lift of 45.1%.

“With the COP28 Food Systems and Agriculture Agenda, there is no better time to partner with Majid Al Futtaim to help Carrefour shoppers choose products that align with their environmental and social values,” said Ethan Soloviev, Chief Innovation Officer at HowGood. “With more than a third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions linked to the food system, food brands and retailers have an immense opportunity to drive transparency and empower more sustainable decision-making. Our launch at COP28 will be a clear signal of where the future of retail is headed with regard to sustainability.”

“Our launch of the Choose Better program is not only a testament to our commitment to sustainability, it also aligns with our purpose to help customers shop smarter and live better by helping them make healthier, more sustainable shopping choices,” said Sheila Chaiban, CMO at Majid Al Futtaim Retail. “Powered by HowGood’s product rating system and SES-imagotag’s smart labels, we’re excited to enable shoppers to find products that are better for the planet.”

Roy Horgan, SEVP Strategy, Marketing & Communications of SES-imagotag, concluded: “We are delighted to partner with HowGood and Majid Al Futtaim during the COP28, to better influence Carrefour consumers’ decisions at the shelf-edge through sustainable information provided by our technologies. Moreover, after our successful collaboration with HowGood at Kavanagh’s Budgens Belsize Park in the UK, and now at Carrefour, it gives our partnership with HowGood significant scale and impact, moving from an independent retailer to a major retailer. We'll continue to offer this unique value proposition to more customers running on our VUSION Cloud next year, as our aim is to create a positive impact on society by enabling sustainable and human-centered commerce.”

HowGood’s product labels for Sustainability Ratings, Attributes, and Carbon Footprint will be displayed at Carrefour's COP28 store locations starting November 28 and will be live for the next three months, as well as in select Carrefour stores throughout the UAE. For more information about the partnership, HowGood’s impact labels, research and methodology, please visit https://howgood.com/carrefouruae-cop28/.

About HowGood                                

HowGood is an independent research company and SaaS Sustainability Intelligence platform with the world’s largest database on food product sustainability. With more than 33,000 ingredients, chemicals and materials assessed, HowGood helps leading brands, suppliers, retailers and restaurants improve their environmental and social impact. Through in-depth, ingredient-level insights into factors like greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, labor risk, animal welfare, and other key impacts, HowGood’s data power strategic decision-making for the sourcing, manufacturing, merchandising, and marketing of sustainable products.

About SES-imagotag and the VUSION Retail IoT platform

SES-imagotag is a world leader in smart digital labels and IoT solutions for physical retail, serving over 350 large retailer groups around the world in Europe, Asia and North America.