Lagardère Travel Retail Welcomes the Official Launch of the LESS Platform to Accelerate Collective Decarbonization Efforts

Following the announcement made earlier this year, Lagardère Travel Retail is pleased to celebrate the official launch of the LESS (Low Emission Sustainable Sourcing) platform, a collective initiative designed to harmonize the reporting of CO₂ emissions across the retail sector’s supply chain.

Coordinated by Perifem and the Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution (FCD), LESS brings together nine founding retailers – including Lagardère Travel Retail, Carrefour, E.Leclerc, Intermarché, Coopérative U, Lidl, Auchan, Casino, and METRO France – and already counts more than 150 suppliers among its participants. The platform, powered by OpenClimat, offers suppliers a single interface to report their carbon data across all participating retailers, significantly simplifying processes and improving transparency across the value chain.

By making the platform operational today, the participating retailers reaffirm their shared ambition to accelerate the decarbonization of their operations and of their suppliers’ activities. With more than 90% of retail-related emissions stemming from Scope 3, such collaboration marks a decisive step toward more effective, data-driven carbon reduction strategies.

“The launch of LESS transforms an ambitious idea into concrete action,” said Arnaud Rolland, VP CSR at Lagardère Travel Retail, who spoke at the official launch event in Paris. “By joining forces with our peers and partners, we’re building a unified approach that will enable the entire industry to move faster and further in its decarbonization journey.”

Validated by the French Competition Authority, LESS is open to all French and European retailers and foodservice operators. A Stakeholder Committee (Comité des Parties Prenantes) gathering Perifem, FCD, and key industry federations has been created to guide and strengthen the initiative’s collective governance. 

The launch of LESS is fully aligned with the Planet pillar of Lagardère Travel Retail’s PEPS CSR strategy (Planet, Ethics, People, Social), through which the company aims to achieve a 25% absolute reduction in Scope 3 carbon emissions by 2030, using 2024 as the base year, validated by Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) requirements.