Willys enters into collaboration with Swedish Society for Nature Conservation

Willys, Sweden's leading discount grocery chain, is entering into a strategic environmental collaboration with the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) – an undertaking that will include joint activities and campaigns, among other things. In conjunction with this, Willys is also filing an application to ecolabel all 150 stores in the chain with the Bra Miljöval ("Good Environmental Choice") label.

“Willys is the country's leading discount food chain; we offer our customers Sweden’s cheapest bag of groceries,” says Thomas Evertsson, President of Willys. “We don't see any contradiction between low prices and care for the environment. We already have a large offering of environmental products and are working to achieve more environment-friendly store operations. Our cooperation with the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation will be a further catalyst in our environmental efforts.” SSNC will be a strategic environmental partner of Willys and thereby a resource in the company's work on establishing itself as a sustainable retail food chain. “Our cooperation with Willys will enable us to help accelerate the pace of Willys’ environmental work, and with the help of our consumer advice service, we can encourage more consumers to choose ecolabelled products, which is clearly in line with our ambition to be the hallmark of green consumerism in Sweden,” says Svante Axelsson, Secretary General of SSNC. The collaboration between Willys and SSNC entails, among other things, that Willys will actively market SSNC's work on boosting its membership numbers and resources, to the benefit of projects conducted by the organisation. "When our stores become ecolabelled, our customers can be assured that they are shopping at a store that is working to conserve nature and protect the environment," says Åsa Domeij, Head of Environment and Social Responsibility at Axfood. Willys is seeking permission to ecolabel all of its stores with SSNC's Bra Miljöval ("Good Environmental Choice") label. When the stores have been approved by SSNC's certifiers, the Good Environmental Choice label will certify that the stores have good access to ecolabelled and organic products, and that they have adopted good environmental practices in general, such as through ambitious waste sorting and energy savings programmes. For further information, please contact: Johanna Eurén, Willys Communications, 070-3461348 Åsa Domeij, Head of Environment and Social Responsibility, Axfood, tel. +46-73-077 43 07 Thomas Evertsson, President Willys, tel +46-70-584 89 50 Svante Axelsson, Secretary General, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, tel. +46-70-728 25 85 Anders Grönvall, Press Manager, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, tel. +46-70-6554619