New store in Sweden prices goods based on carbon emissions

In terms of climate impact, food production is responsible for approximately a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But despite consumers’ increased awareness about such negative environmental impacts and a desire to make better choices, it can be difficult to know which foods are best for the environment.

Swedish brand Felix, owned by Orkla Foods, has identified a consumer desire for clearer guidance in this respect, and they have attempted to provide this by opening The Climate Store – solving the issue where it really matters, at the point of purchase.

In the Climate Store, customers pay with carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e) and all products are priced based on their climate impact. The company states that, in order to halve our climate impact, every customer must keep to a weekly budget of 18.9 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents. By using a climate-based currency, Felix highlights what the true cost of food really is, and that the change in our pocket is equal to the change needed for a sustainable world.

Highlighting Felix’s passion for this new concept store, Thomas Sjöberg, marketing manager at Felix, said: “It will be exciting to see how customers react to trading with the CO₂e currency and see if they manage to stay within their weekly budget. I think it will be an eye opener for many, to see how certain choices affect what you can afford to get in the same lunch bag.”

The grocery store is part of Felix’s long-term work to clarify the connection between the products we eat and their climate impact. From this autumn, Felix will label products with their ‘Low Climate Impact’ symbol in categories where consumers making good climate choices will make the most difference.

At South Pole we see climate change as a puzzle, as with any puzzle there are multiple pieces that fit together in order to complete the picture. Reducing emissions and decarbonising economies is urgently required, however time is running out and the technology to do so is not always available.

That's where carbon credits come in. Companies and individuals can account for their unavoidable emissions by buying carbon credits from certified activities that support community development, protect ecosystems or install efficient technology to reduce or remove emissions from the atmosphere. Read on to find out more!

• From taking an international flight to producing raw materials to buying a morning coffee. As businesses and as individuals we generate unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions.
• The choices we make have an impact on the size of our carbon footprint and many of us are reducing where possible. This can include switching to renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, taking public transport instead of driving or divesting from carbon-intensive industries.
• But for what we can't reduce, businesses and individuals can compensate for their unavoidable emissions by financing emission reduction projects around the world – a practice called "carbon offsetting".

If you develop a project that reduces carbon dioxide emissions, every tonne of emissions reduced results in the creation of one carbon offset, or carbon credit. A carbon credit is a tradeable certificate that represents the avoidance or removal of one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions. Buying carbon credits means investing in emission reduction projects around the world – projects that require financing in order to take place.

Robust science has shown that increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are driving global warming, which in turn creates extreme weather changes around the world. This increase in greenhouse gas levels is a result primarily of our burning of fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas. Under the banner of the UN and Paris Agreement, the world's countries have come together to declare that urgent action must be taken to lower emissions if we are to maintain a habitable planet that can support the world's population. Latest research emphasises that urgent action must be taken by everyone in order to safeguard some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and communities on the planet.

High-quality carbon credits adhere to a strict set of standards. You can check this by ensuring the projects you invest in are registered with a third-party internationally recognised verification standard, such as the Gold Standard, Verra's Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Social Carbon and Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS), or standards verified by the UNFCCC. These standards also help highlight different benefits while ensuring that the project is real, verified, permanent and of course additional.

In terms of transparency, carbon credits are assigned serial numbers and are issued, transferred and permanently retired in publicly accessible emission registries, such as the Markit Environmental Registry and APX VCS Registry.

This can often be the trickiest part of carbon offsetting to understand, but theoretically its very simple. Additionality means that the reductions in emissions achieved by the project must be "above business as usual" - they would not have happened unless the project was implemented. It also means that the project would not be viable without the revenue from carbon credits.

There are no borders in the atmosphere, levels of CO2 is an international problem, which requires an international solution. Therefore it does not matter where the project you are buying carbon credits from is located. Many of our projects operate in less economically developed countries, as there we are often able to create a bigger impact for the local community thanks to co-benefits and extra activities. For example, the Kariba project achieves its primary aim of protecting a vast expanse of forest on the shores of Lake Kariba, through training local people, providing alternative income streams, increasing access to safe water and empowering women, which at the same time significantly improves local livelihoods!

Emission reduction projects reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in at least one of three ways. The first avoids greenhouse gas emissions, for example replacing fossil fuel-derived energy with energy from renewable sources. The second removes emissions from the atmosphere, for example, planting more trees, which sequester - or capture - carbon from the atmosphere and store it in liquid or solid form. The third captures and destroys emissions, for example methane gas capture from wastewater.