A Self-Assessment Tool to Accompany Our Suppliers in Their Sustainable Development Approach

• Fourteen years of voluntary approaches to GMOs: Since 1996, Carrefour has offered to all its customers products that are not GMO labeled (GMO – genetically modified organism), giving them the opportunity to buy products according to their conviction. For some of its Carrefour Quality Line products, Carrefour goes even further by excluding GMOs from the source animal feed. Outside the European Union, Carrefour applies a progressive approach regarding its non-GMO policy, taking into account the local context linked to national laws, economic contexts, and the different sensibilities of consumers.
  
  
• First French retailer to develop a responsible fishing offer: Back in 1995, Carrefour developed a fishing offer with its Quality product line whereby fish was farmed according to environmentally-friendly practices and not labeled GMO. Ten years later, Carrefour was the first retailer to develop and offer a “responsible fishing” frozen fish product range to consumers, which has since become the Carrefour AGIR Eco Planète range. With 26 references, Carrefour is the retailer that proposes the widest offering of MSC-certified (Marine Stewardship Council) products in France. Following scientists’ alerts in 2006, a halt in the marketing of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna was ordered in all European stores of the Group and halted completely in 2008. Since 2007, Carrefour has also been working with the WWF to identify the best sources of supply.
  
  
• Twelve years of commitment to forest protection: Engaged since 1997 in an approach to control the sourcing of wood supplies, Carrefour has been working with the WWF since 1998 to privilege FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified wood. Thus the Group Purchasing Office assortment of outdoor furniture consists exclusively of FSC-certified products and Acacia, a species that is not included on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources list of endangered species and for which Carrefour’s suppliers have engaged in a process of FSC certification with the Vietnam Forest and Trade Network. For its commercial publications, and beyond its policy for the use of paper with reduced weight, Carrefour is committed to reaching the target of having 100 percent of the paper for catalogs and consumer magazines ordered by the Group to be made from recycled wood fibers and/or of paper from forests under certified responsible management by 2010.
  
  
• First French retailer committed to the responsible use of palm oil in 100 percent of its own brand products by 2015: Within the framework of its participation in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) since 2006, Carrefour is committed to promoting a production process of palm oil that respects environmental protection criteria and small producers. In 2009, Carrefour was still the only French retailer that was a member of this initiative. After an awareness-raising campaign among its own brand suppliers and an inventory of the presence of palm oil in its own brand products in 2007, Carrefour proceeded in 2008 to substitute the palm oil included in its own brand chips marketed in France (representing the withdrawal of a third of the total volume of the palm oil used). In 2009, the first amounts of responsible certified palm oil through the RSPO system became available on the market. Thus Carrefour has committed to using only certified oil in all of its own brand products by 2015. Henceforth, Carrefour’s position toward the suppliers of its own brand products is to request that they substitute the palm oil when it is technically possible and when it represents a nutritional interest.
  
  

This project description was originally presented in the Global Compact International Yearbook 2010.