Shopping consciously doesn’t have to be hard.

Klarna’s vision is to empower its consumers to make more informed purchase decisions. Sustainability is a broad concept and encompasses different aspects such as climate change, biodiversity, working conditions, materials with environmental or social attributes.

Climate change is a pressing issue, current greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have an impact on society equivalent to 2% of the global GDP. Consumers are increasingly paying attention to this and other sustainability topics. A study by Deloitte in the UK showed that 46% of consumers say that more information on the origin/sourcing of products can help them become more sustainable. To support this demand for information we wanted to analyze how partners perform in terms of their current levels of GHG emissions as well as what commitments they have in place to help curb climate change.

Through the partnership with Clarity AI we enable Klarna consumers to choose products from companies that are aligned with their sustainability preferences by learning more about the companies’ practices related to their climate sustainability efforts, such as the share of renewable energy used.

Clarity AI focuses on brands that can be mapped to publicly-traded companies, as they have the highest requirements for sustainability related disclosure and auditing for all relevant metrics (climate and non-climate related, such as revenue).

Given that greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and commitments are usually reported at the company level, not by brand or region, Clarity AI assesses companies based on their overall performance.

In an initial phase, this feature will only be available for electronics brands, but will likely be expanded to cover other verticals in the future.

To measure companies’ performance, Clarity AI has created five climate-related badges awarded to electronics companies. The badges are:

• Lower direct greenhouse gas emissions

• Commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

• Lower indirect greenhouse gas emissions

• Disclosing greenhouse gas emissions

• Using renewable energy

While some badges are based on absolute criteria (e.g., whether the company commitments are aligned to a 1.5 degree warming scenario) others are better measured based on relative criteria (e.g., whether the company has lower emission levels than others).
When applying relative criteria Clarity AI only compares companies to others that have similar activities to ensure that the comparisons are relevant (e.g., Clarity AI doesn’t compare emissions of retailers with emissions of manufacturers).
Only partners that have been assigned the first two badges (Lower direct greenhouse gas emissions and Committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) are eligible to be showcased by Klarna.

Klarna electronics retailer partners were included in the assessment if they can be mapped to a publicly traded company, have relevant order volume and if relevant data is publicly available.

All the brands showcased have been assessed by Clarity AI upon their sustainability performance and goals based on public information. Clarity AI uses data that companies provide through public statements and reports, and validates the reported information to ensure the quality of the data used in their methodology.

Sustainable is a very complex term as it encompassess different aspects (e.g., climate change, land degradation, labor conditions) and companies can perform well in one topic and not in others. The information currently displayed only focuses on the emissions performance of companies.