Client: Coop

Designing Climate-Friendly Consumer Choices and Economic Growth

consumer behavior, retail, sustainability

Challenge

The European food and grocery retail industry is both vast and highly competitive, with supermarkets shaping consumer trends and driving growth. At the same time, consumers are becoming more climate-conscious, seeking eco-friendly products and transparent sourcing. For retailers, long-term success depends on balancing commercial performance with ambitious sustainability goals—and adapting to stricter regulations.

COOP, with over 1,200 stores and 40,000 employees, has taken a pioneering role. As the first grocery company approved by the international Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), COOP committed to reducing the climate footprint of the average shopping basket by 2% annually. The challenge: how to influence everyday shopping behavior at scale while ensuring strong commercial results.

“With a focus on customer behavior, we have in just six months successfully reached the CO₂ reduction level that was planned for all COOP stores in 2030. At the same time, sales, profits, and customer satisfaction improved.”

Jonas Engberg, Head of Climate, COOP

Approach

Together with Krukow, COOP developed new behavior-led POS and space management concepts to nudge customers toward climate-friendly choices. By redesigning in-store decision environments, the aim was to:

Make sustainable products more visible and attractive.
Reduce food waste through optimized placement and messaging.
Align commercial growth with climate goals.

Solution

The interventions included:

Behavioral POS design highlighting climate-friendly options.
Space management strategies that prioritized sustainable products.
In-store nudges that made climate-conscious shopping the easy, intuitive choice.

This approach connected COOP’s climate commitments directly to the consumer experience—linking business growth with measurable sustainability impact.

Impact

The results were groundbreaking:

14% reduction in CO₂ emissions in just six months—surpassing 2030 targets 5 years ahead of schedule.
25% increase in sales of climate-friendly products.
123% increase in net turnover in test stores compared to the previous year.
60% reduction in food waste.
65% uplift in customer perception of COOP as a climate-friendly retailer.

Conclusion

COOP’s achievements prove that sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand. By embedding behavioral design into retail standards, COOP has created a scalable model that reduces emissions, improves commercial performance, and strengthens brand perception.

This project serves as a best-practice example for the global retail industry, demonstrating how supermarkets can play a leading role in tackling climate change—while also unlocking significant growth opportunities.