Kesko to develop a customer service for monitoring household emissions of carbon dioxide

Kesko participates in the Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT) project examining consumers' possibilities to impact climate change. The main objective of the project is to find out how to reliably determine the carbon footprints of food products. The one-year project also pilots an Internet service providing K-food store customers with information about the carbon footprints of the products they have bought. Making the new service available for customers using the K-Plussa card will be decided after the pilot stage.

"We want to make responsible choices easy for our customers. Customers have increasing needs for information about the impact of their consumption behaviour on the environment and their health. These expectations and needs must be taken into account when products and services are developed," says Timo Jäske, Environmental Manager of Kesko Food.

A selected group of the K-Group customers participate in the development of a service which will be used to find out the environmental impact of individual households. However, it will not be very soon, because an overall idea of how reliable carbon footprint data on food products can be obtained must first be established.

"The general outline is clear. In Finland, eating causes the biggest consumption-related environmental impact. In order that individual consumers can make choices which affect climate change, they must be offered responsible products and services that meet their needs, as well as reliable real-time information about the size of carbon footprints," says Ulla Rehell, Assistant Vice President, Corporate Responsibility of Kesko.

The project participants also include Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT); National Consumer Research Centre (KTK); Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE); MTTAgrifood Research Finland; Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation; Elisa Corporation; HK Ruokatalo; StoraEnso; Nokia and Tuulia International, the producer of Kesko's Nutritioncode service (Ravintokoodi.fi). Research information relating to the project is available from the University of Oxford, the Milieu Centraal foundation, the University of Manchester, Motiva and Consumer Forum.

Further information:
Timo Jäske, Environmental Manager, Kesko Food Ltd, tel. +358 1053 28222
Ulla Rehell, Assistant Vice President, Corporate Responsibility, Kesko Corporation, tel. +358 1053 22464
Nina Kinnunen, Communications Manager, Kesko Food Ltd, tel. +358 1053 37187 (Ravintokoodi.fi)

Kesko (www.kesko.fi) is a Finnish retail specialist whose stores offer quality to the daily lives of consumers through valued products and services at competitive prices. Kesko has about 2,000 stores engaged in chain operations in the Nordic and Baltic countries, and Russia.