Sweden Pavilion’s store presents clothes with carbon footprint tags

DUBAI: A store at the Sweden Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai is leading the way in helping shoppers assess the carbon footprint of their clothes by showing the climate impact data on the price tag.

TransparAll, a women-owned company operating in Sweden and the Middle East, offers products where the carbon footprint is calculated beforehand by the retailer using an app, enabling the consumer to assess the impact of their purchase on the climate.

Sofie Kallstrom, CEO and Founder of TransparAll, said, “We have partnered with a Swedish company that has developed an app that calculates the carbon footprint of clothes. Just as people want to know the calories they consume in food, today we have an app to calculate the carbon footprint on each product. As every brand today wants to be sustainable, I believe this is the way to go to achieve sustainability in fashion.”

The company behind the technology is Doconomy, a three-year-old Swedish fintech firm that has developed the 2030 Calculator, an innovative app that calculates carbon footprint based on the emissions generated, from manufacturing and transport up until the point of sale.

The path-breaking app enables producers to calculate and declare their product’s carbon footprint with the goal of empowering customers to make informed purchases.

The app comes with a template in which the producer enters details of the product (weight and product category); parts (name, weight, category, supplier location, transport mode); then packaging and manufacturing data (facility location, type of energy used, location of brand distribution centre, and mode of transport to the brand distribution centre). Once all steps are completed, the results are displayed in the results tab, declaring the final total carbon footprint.

Alexandra Karnig, Head of Business – Product, Doconomy, Sweden, responding to email questions, said: “The 2030 Calculator enables manufacturing brands to easily calculate the carbon footprint of their products. The tool uses both global and local data points, and can make a calculation even if some of the production data is not available.”

Asked about the uptake of the solution in different countries, Karnig said: “There are currently no available standards regulating how companies should calculate and measure a product’s carbon footprint, however the PEF (Product Environmental Footprint) initiative, led by the European Commission, is working on developing such standards, which will be followed by legislation. It is Doconomy’s key focus to ensure that the 2030 Calculator is compliant with PEF.”

Karnig said many smaller but global brands were using the platform, including Swedish watch brand Triwa and US chair maker Emeco. “We are in dialogue with major companies to adapt the tool to their needs,” she added.

Doconomy’s solutions are being used by companies across product lines. In the UAE, Mastercard, Official Payment Technology Partner of Expo 2020 Dubai, last year released its Mastercard Carbon Calculator, developed in collaboration with Doconomy. The solution provides access to a snapshot of the carbon emissions generated by purchases across different spending categories.

Doconomy is a partner of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Mastercard, S&P Trucost, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Source: Expo 2020 Website