Co-operatives excelled in Scandinavia’s largest brand survey with a focus on sustainability. Every year Sustainable Brand Insight puts together a list of the most sustainable brands in the region. This year’s Sustainable Brand Index featured all main retail Scandinavian co-operatives.
As part of the research, over 2,700 consumers analysed more than 700 Nordic brands. In Denmark Irma, which is part of Coop Denmark, was chosen as the most sustainable brand. Sustainability has always been a key concept for Irma, having an organic share of 25%, Irma sells the highest proportion of organic products in the world. Moreover, the top three in Denmark is dominated by brands owned by Coop Denmark.
“Irma takes a leap from 4th to 1st place this year. This speaks volumes about the hard work they have put into their brand. Irma is part of the Coop group that has performed very well in the index for many years, it is great to see how Coop’s vision of a sustainable company runs through the entire enterprise,” says Erik Hedén, managing director at Sustainable Brand Insight, the company behind the study.
Finland's SOK Corporation, which runs the largest retailer in the country, also did well at the award ceremony, as S-market and Prism were ranked as second and fourth, respectively, in the field of most responsible brands in Finland. S Group, which includes SOK Corporation, has over 1.9 million co-op members and more than 1,600 outlets across the country.
Coop Norway, which runs grocery stores came fifth in the ranking by country and was named the most sustainable grocery store in Norway.
Meanwhile, Coop Sweden’s “#ekoloftet” campaign was named this year’s best sustainability campaign. Launched last year, the initiative is an integrated campaign that provides an online platform to present the goals of political parties and their aspirations on organic production and consumption in Sweden. This is the fifth year in a row that Coop Sweden makes it to the Sustainable Brand Index.
“I’m incredibly happy about our investment and our sustainable initiatives attention. It shows that we continue to be at the forefront. The result is also an acknowledgement of the dedication and hard work in our organisation,” said Björn Larsson, business area market director at Coop Sweden.
