Colruyt Group helps customers contribute to a better environment with a unique savings programme in the Xtra app

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

From now on, customers of Colruyt Group's food retailers can contribute (even more) to a better environment. By buying food products with Eco-score A or B, they save points in their Xtra profile. These points can be exchanged in the Xtra-app to support projects that make a positive contribution to the environment. With this new initiative, Colruyt Group wants to further encourage customers to make conscious choices when shopping, by giving them something tangible in return. Through cooperation with local partners, customers can use the points they have saved, for example, to plant a tree or sow a flower meadow: different kinds of environment-related projects. Other themes from Colruyt Group's sustainable “Step by Step” programme, including society, health, animal welfare and any related projects, will be systematically added from the end of 2023. This is the first time that such a savings programme has been integrated in Xtra.

Customers contribute to a better environment, step by step

Our society is increasingly faced with tough challenges, both in an economic and climatological sense. Colruyt Group continuously supports small and large initiatives which may have a positive impact on our health, society, animal welfare and the environment. Within this last pillar, the retail group launched the Eco-score, over a year and a half ago, as an accessible scoring system to help customers make more eco-friendly choices. Now is the time to take matters a step further.

Under the motto of “Making conscious choices is scoring points”, Colruyt Group now rewards customers who choose products with an Eco-score A or B at Colruyt Lowest Prices, Bio-Planet, OKay, Spar Colruyt Group or Collect&Go. Customers can earn two points for each Eco-score A product and one point for each Eco-score B product they buy. These points are automatically added to the customer's Xtra profile when the products are scanned at the checkout. When customers have collected 100 points, they can choose to have a tree planted, to have 1 m² of flower meadow or nature area created, or to attend a sustainability workshop at Colruyt Group Academy. The ambition in the first year is to plant 35,000 trees, to sow 50,000 m² of flower meadow and to create 25.000 m² of nature area.

The savings programme fits in perfectly with Colruyt Group's ambition to take the lead in sustainable environmental initiatives.* Jef Colruyt, CEO Colruyt Group: "You cannot put the environment on hold, even though, as a big retailer, there are a lot of other items on the agenda as well. We are convinced that we have to continue to invest in initiatives aimed at preserving the environment, because time is really running out. By setting up a unique savings programme focused on sustainable initiatives, we want to inspire our customers to start a positive movement together and encourage concrete action. Only together we can take better care of our planet and society and, in this way, secure the future of the next generations.”

Cooperation with local partners

Veerle Poppe, responsible for rolling out the Eco-score at Colruyt Group, emphasises: “With this new savings programme, customers are actually doing two good deeds for the environment. Your purchase was already eco-friendly, and your points also go to an ecological project. That's how we're contributing to a better environment, step by step. So making conscious choices at Colruyt Group is not just saving points, it's above all scoring points.”

In order to actually implement these initiatives, Colruyt Group is working together with a number of (local) partners, so that customers can see what is actually being accomplished with their points. Clear agreements were made with these partners about the intended impact and about reporting on the project's progress. The chosen projects have several things in common: they are local, with measurable impact, tangible, visible, and implemented in the year of the project. We are currently cooperating with the Brussels-based Bûûmplanters, Nassonia, BeeOdiversity and through projects via GoodPlanet (“Een Hart voor Bijen” and Tiny Forest®). Those organisations ensure that the points saved by customers will effectively boost the biodiversity through planting trees, sowing meadows, hedges and Tiny Forest®, for example.

Eco-score: making conscious choices while making a real difference

Just under two years ago, Colruyt Group launched the Eco-score in our country. The label aims to inform people in simple and correct terms about the environmental impact of their purchases. The methodology was developed on a scientific basis by a collective of independent players in France. The score is made up of two components, on the one hand the results of the life cycle analysis of a product (from farm to fork) and on the other hand the addition of extra indicators according to a bonus-malus system. The result is a score out of 100 and a letter from A (green) to E (red), recognisable by the logo with a leaf.

Scores for about 50 % of all food products (both A brands and Private Label) can now be consulted online in the various apps and on Colruyt Group websites (MyColruyt, SmartWithFood, Xtra, bioplanet.be, colruyt.be, okay.be). Additionally, the score is already displayed on the packaging of more than 250 Colruyt Group private label products, while several communication campaigns are running.

Bio-Planet already actively ran a discount campaign for products with a favourable A and B Eco-score and the score is also displayed on the electronic price label in the stores. The roll-out on the price labels at OKay is scheduled at the end of November, and in January all products for which an Eco-score is available today (13,500 national brand products and 3,800 private label products) will appear on the electronic price label at Colruyt Lowest Prices.

Veerle Poppe: "It is a little too early today to really see a change in consumer behaviour based on this score. We have mainly focused on awareness-raising campaigns over the past year and a half. A savings campaign like this might provide the extra boost to trigger concrete changes in purchases. We won't notice a real change until later.”

First savings programme in Xtra

The new savings programme is one of the first major novelties in the brand-new edition of the Xtra app. With a host of new functionalities, the app has the ambition of becoming more of a personal assistant to the customer, and is the perfect platform for such an initiative. More than 1.4 million people are already using the app, and there are more than 4 million Xtra users in total. A great basis for making a solid difference.

More information about the new savings programme and the local projects can be found here.

* Colruyt Group is taking the lead in terms of sustainable environmental initiatives

Even in less prosperous economic times, Colruyt Group continues to invest in environmental initiatives. Jef Colruyt: “We cannot change the rising energy prices, but we can invest even more in sustainable energy, like solar and wind power. Colruyt Group has been working on this for a long time, in addition to numerous other sustainability projects, investing in wind farms on land and at sea. With an extensive energy reduction programme, we have managed to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. By planting 12 million trees in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we also aim to compensate at least the equivalent of our remaining emissions from 2030 onwards.” Several of the group's shops are already passive buildings today. This should be all buildings by 2035. By 2030, ALL CFCs should be out the stores. The plan is to reduce our energy needs by another 80%. Today, the consumption of Colruyt Group stores is already half that of competing supermarkets. Jef Colruyt: "Fortunately, we are already reaping the benefits of our efforts to become more sustainable. The Eco-score remains an important leverage for us towards customers, and thanks to this savings programme, we can now take concrete actions together with them.”